Order Doesn't Come By Itself.

If You Look At A Shape Like A Straight Line, What's Remarkable Is That If You Look At A Straight Line From Close By, From Far Away, It Is The Same; It Is A Straight Line.

I Conceived, Developed And Applied In Many Areas A New Geometry Of Nature, Which Finds Order In Chaotic Shapes And Processes. It Grew Without A Name Until 1975, When I Coined A New Word To Denote It, Fractal Geometry, From The Latin Word For Irregular And Broken Up, Fractus. Today You Might Say That, Until Fractal Geometry Became Organized, My Life Had Followed A Fractal Orbit.

If You Look At Coastlines, If You Look At That Them From Far Away, From An Airplane, Well, You Don't See Details, You See A Certain Complication. When You Come Closer, The Complication Becomes More Local, But Again Continues. And Come Closer And Closer And Closer, The Coastline Becomes Longer And Longer And Longer Because It Has More Detail Entering In.

Now That I Near 80, I Realize With Wistful Pleasure That On Many Occasions I Was 10, 20, 40, Even 50 Years Ahead Of My Time.

In Fact, I Barely Missed Being Number One In France In Both Schools. In Particular I Did Very Well In Mathematical Problems.