Fractal Geometry Founder Speaks at Caltech

PASADENA, Calif. — Benoit Mandelbrot, the founder of fractal geometry, will be the California Institute of Technology's eighth Kliegel Lecturer. He will speak at 4 p.m. November 12 in Ramo Auditorium on the Caltech campus in Pasadena. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Mandelbrot's presentation will be "Fractals, From Art to Art: Through Mathematics, Finance, Engineering, and the Sciences."

Mandelbrot is Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University and IBM Fellow Emeritus (Physics) at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.

He is the author of Les objets fractals and The Fractal Geometry of Nature, among other books. He is a recipient of numerous honors, including the Harvey Prize for Science and Technology, the Wolf Prize for Physics, and the Humboldt Preis.

He earned engineer's and master's degrees in aeronautics at Caltech and a PhD in mathematics at the University of Paris, and has received numerous honorary degrees from universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel, and Argentina.

He had no formal mentor, but his early work was strongly influenced by Paul Lévy, Norbert Wiener, and John von Neumann. He has held positions at CNRS, Philips Electronics, MIT, the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Lille, and Ecole Polytechnique.

The Kliegel Lecture was made possible by Dr. James R. and Shirley A. Kliegel. It is intended to bring to campus world-renowned experts who have applied classical or computational analysis in the resolution of fundamental scientific issues that arise in dealing with current technological problems.

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