fractal

The mathematical concept fractal was named by Polish-born French-American mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot in his 1975 book “Les Objets Fractals: Forme, Hasard et Dimension”, translated to English in 1977 as “Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension”. Fractal is based on Classical Latin fractus, meaning “broken”. Its Latin root form is frangō, “to break”, which has the English descendant frangible.

Mandelbrot, whose Jewish parents fled with him from Warsaw to France in 1936, was a visiting professor at Yale and a researcher at IBM in Westchester at the time. As fractals and their study spread, this dual career allowed him to be the first person to visualize what is now called the Mandelbrot set in 1980. First defined by Robert W. Brooks and Peter Maleski in 1978, Mandelbrot’s access to IBM’s compute allowed him to be the first person to glimpse its infinite wonder. The set was named in his honor in 1985.

Mandelbrot is the German word for almond bread (like a biscotti). Mandel, meaning “almond”, is descended from Classical Latin amygdala, from Ancient Greek ἀμυγδάλη (amugdálē), both meaning “almond”. Brot means “bread”, like its English cognate and sibling.