Drawn from the irregular shapes and processes found in nature, his research benefited a wide array of fields, from art to physics and finance. Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's ...

He is known as the "father of fractals" for having discovered one of the most important patterns in nature. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how ...

In the mid-1980s, like Walkman cassette players and tie-dyed shirts, the buglike silhouette of the Mandelbrot set was everywhere. Students plastered it to dorm room walls around the world.

Benoit Mandelbrot, the Polish-born, French and American mathematician, known as the "father of fractal geometry," is celebrated in today's Google Doodle, on what would have been his 96th birthday.