The Mandelbort Set Was a Discovery of a 13th Century Monk

A retired Math Professor at Harvard University Schipke discovered that the Mandelbrot Set, named after Benoit Mandelbrot, who until now is recognized as the discoverer of the fractal object in 1976 when he was working at IBM, was actually discovered in the 13th century by a mediaeval Benedictine monk, Udo of Aachen. Udo is now nicknamed the Mandelbrot Monk.

On a holiday visit to Aachen cathedral, the burial place of Charlemagne, Schipke saw something that amazed him. In a tiny nativity scene illuminating the manuscript of a 13th century carol, O froehliche Weihnacht, he noticed that the Star of Bethlehem looked odd. On examining it in detail, he saw that the gilded image seemed to be a representation of the Mandelbrot set, one of the icons of the computer age.


Udo's original motivation for the fractal was to calculate who would go to heaven. In so doing he came up with an iteration z -> z*z + c in the complex plane.

Related:

• Fractal FAQ
• Schipke, R.J. and Eberhardt, A. "The forgotten genius of Udo von Aachen", Harvard Journal of Historical Mathematics, 32, 3 (March 1999), pp 34-77.