It was sad to hear of the passing of Mandelbrot last week. But that we should be blessed with his insight is a great thing. He also lived into his eighties, which is a good innings.<\/p>\n
Mandelbrot is best know for his work on Fractals. The beauty of fractals is that, while not predictive, they can describe very complicated objects from very simple constructs and that, I believe, is the key to life universe and everything. Whether is subatomic particles, a coastline or a tennis match; all have their roots and descriptions in very simple origins. It’s quite amazing how simple systems can produce complex behaviour and it’s something I’ve explored for years. I never feel confident in something until I have broken it down into it’s finite constituent parts. When you look at Tennis Trader<\/a>, it works by taking a very complicated and complex end result, the odds, then it breaks those down into some fundamental metrics which then allows it to\u00a0 project forward. While not strictly fractal in nature, I owe that thought process to people like Mandelbrot.<\/p>\n