Benoit Mandelbrot, 1924-2010

fooledbyrandomness.com

17 points·harscoat··10 comments

I don't get it. Is he dead? I can find no credible evidence that he is. Wikipedia proclaims he is alive, there is no news indicating otherwise, nor any web reports. We only have this odd link to Taleb's homepage indicating that Mandelbrot has passed. Surely if you're going to submit a link regarding such an event there is more information and a better link to share other than two lines on Taleb's homepage--right?

EDIT: This is nothing more than a rumor right now. Even Wikipedia has a discussion topic on it, referencing Taleb's home page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Benoît_Mandelbrot#Death_ru...

He's alive according to: http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.Nsf/mnames/Mandelbrot+Be...

reading the pages URL "fooled by randomness" I would consider this a bad joke. Could somebody mark this post as [dead] ?

That is Nassim Taleb's website. Fooled By Randomness was his first trade book. Taleb is Mandelbrot's protege in financial circles.

Oh, ok. Thank you for clarifying this point. I didn't know the book and thought it strange in combination with this unconfirmed information.

Nassim posted the same news on his facebook page too. I would guess the news is not hoax. I dont think his page is hacked.

Unless Nicholas Taleb's page was hacked, he's dead.

Taleb is a close personal friend of Mandelbrot.

References/Confirmation at Tyler Cowen's site:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/10...

He's just linking to twitter and Taleb. Whether or not its true is beyond me, what's sort of irresponsible is everyone pointing to everyone else for confirmation w/o any sort of definitive source.

His TED Talk is great if you haven't seen him much: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay8OMOsf6AQ

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