For much of my life there was no place where the things I wanted to investigate were of interest to anyone.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Lucian Velea
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There is a saying that every nice piece of work needs the right person in the right place at the right time.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Lucian Velea
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An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in inventing something.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
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Now that I near 80, I realize with wistful pleasure that on many occasions I was 10, 20, 40, even 50 years ahead of my time.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Lucian Velea
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Most were beginning to feel they had learned enough to last for the rest of their lives. They remained mathematicians, but largely went their own way.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Lucian Velea
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A cloud is made of billows upon billows upon billows that look like clouds. As you come closer to a cloud you don't get something smooth, but irregularities at a smaller scale.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Lucian Velea
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When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Lucian Velea
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Although computer memory is no longer expensive, there's always a finite size buffer somewhere. When a big piece of news arrives, everybody sends a message to everybody else, and the buffer fills.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Lucian Velea
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Science would be ruined if (like sports) it were to put competition above everything else, and if it were to clarify the rules of competition by withdrawing entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are nomads-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Lucian Velea
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An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in 'inventing' something. It's an arrogance that some enjoy, and others do not. Now I reach beyond arrogance when I proclaim that fractals had been pictured forever but their true role remained unrecognized and waited for me to be uncovered.
quote by Benoit Mandelbrot
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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