With these computers, Mandelbrot crunched and manipulated the numbers a thousand times over, a million times over, and graphed the outputs. In 1980, building on the technology and talent of IBM, Mandelbrot used high-powered computers to iterate the equation, or use the equation’s first output as its next input. With a variable of z and parameter of c, this equation maps values on the complex plane-where the x-axis measures the real part of complex number and the y-axis measures theĪt the time of the advice, Mandelbrot couldn’t find any breakthrough, but the intellectual freedom he found at IBM allowed him to fully engage this new project. Their work intrigued mathematicians around the world and revolved around the simplest of equations: The problem was familiar to Mandelbrot, and he recalled the advice his mathematician uncle, Szolem Mandelbrojt, had given him years ago in France-attempt to make something of the obscure theories of iteration established by French mathematicians Pierre Fatou and Gaston Julia. Regardless of the scale of the graph, whether it represented data over the course of one day or one hour or one second, the pattern of disturbance was surprisingly similar. A graph of the turbulence quickly revealed a peculiar characteristic.
Since he was a boy, Mandelbrot had always thought visually, so instead of using the established analytical techniques, he instinctually looked at the white noise in terms of the shapes it generated-an early form of IBM’s now-renowned data visualization practices.
The task was simple enough: IBM was involved in transmitting computer data over phone lines, but a kind of white noise kept disturbing the flow of information-breaking the signal-and IBM looked to Mandelbrot to provide a new perspective on the problem. A bright young academic who had yet to find his professional niche, Mandelbrot was exactly the kind of intellectual maverick IBM had become known for recruiting. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. In 1961, Benoit Mandelbrot was working as a research scientist at the Thomas J.
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