I think Mandelbrot himself is the origin. My understanding is that he added/changed it in order to make that joke. I’d love confirmation of that (or information about his birth name; I don’t know whether he had a middle name when he was born).
Fascinating! My poking around suggests he was born with no middle initial, and added it himself later in life, but never confirmed that the “fractal name” property was the reason. Strange and wonderful man.
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I don’t know if that’s true or not, but gawd, I *want* it to be true.
Great! But where’s Paul Halmos’ tombstone?
I had to read up on Halmos, but you’re totally right! His is the most important tombstone of all…
Paul Halmos
∎
Oh, but you missed the opportunity for this joke:
Benoit B. Mandelbrot — the “B.” stands for “Benoit B. Mandelbrot”
🙂
I do love that line!
At first I thought it came from xkcd, but having just searched it seems to have been circulating for a while – any idea of the origin?
It was on a Reddit thread about the “most intelligent jokes you know”, or something like that.
Found it! https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1h1cyg/whats_the_most_intellectual_joke_you_know/
I think Mandelbrot himself is the origin. My understanding is that he added/changed it in order to make that joke. I’d love confirmation of that (or information about his birth name; I don’t know whether he had a middle name when he was born).
Fascinating! My poking around suggests he was born with no middle initial, and added it himself later in life, but never confirmed that the “fractal name” property was the reason. Strange and wonderful man.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but gawd, I *want* it to be true.
Hilarious!
Doubling the Cube
430 BC — 30 May 1832
Everiste Gallois
25 October 1811 — 31 May 1832
Ha – true. According to Wikipedia the proof of impossibility dates to 1837, but certainly it uses Galois’s techniques.
Each one is great, congrats on the most entertaining and clever post in a while.
Math is all around… above and below ground.