A giant of 20th century mathematics died on Friday, Benoît Mandelbrot, the man who gave prominence to the theory of fractal geometry.

The New York Times is among many who have posted obituaries, and we can expect some specialist tributes once the weekend concludes. In this 2004 article from the Telegraph, Mandelbrot predicted the possibility of an economic crash (thereby perhaps predicting the GFC of 2008).

Here is a TED talk that Dr Mandelbrot gave in February 2010 (in French, with subtitles in English and other languages available):