2021.6 by Elleen Xue
Today I decided to spook myself and take a break off the beaten track while hiking through nearby Grove Street Cemetery, where many local and university luminaries are buried. And there, in the furthest northwest corner, was a tract of plain-looking graves of renowned Yale professors, many of who died childless and never married. Then, as I stared down at the flickering and tremulous shadow of an elm leaf hovering over a name, I had a eureka moment.
The grave was that of mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, the founder of fractal geometry, known for the discovery that as one zooms in on certain geometric sets, shapes not only replicate themselves in smaller, self-similar fashions, but replicate forever. This then has led some to claim that Mandelbrot’s sets are “god’s blueprint” for organic life, something I wish to explore more as a biology student.
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