While the mathematician, born 96 years ago in Warsaw, may be obscure to the non-mathematically-minded, his discoveries are widely known.
The term fractal geometry, coined in 1975, describes the mathematical phenomena of irregular yet infinitely repeating shapes found throughout nature.
Think of snowflakes, ocean waves, DNA, crystals or pineapples.
He also worked at IBM in New York. An early pioneer in using computers, he developed an algorithm that modelled landforms found in nature. It led to his breakthrough and the publishing of his famous 1982 book The Fractal Geometry of Nature.
Mr. Mandelbrot was born to Lithuanian-Jewish parents and was a local chess champion captivated by mathematics and geometry thanks to his father's map collection.
Mr Mandelbrot won numerous awards for his work, including the Wolf Foundation Prize for Physics in 1993.
He passed away in 2010 aged 85.