Mandelbrot set

noun

Man·​del·​brot set ˈman-dəl-ˌbrät- 

-ˌbrȯt-

: a fractal that when plotted on a computer screen roughly resembles a series of heart-shaped disks to which smaller disks are attached and that consists of a connected set of all points c in the complex plane for which the recursive expression z_n+1 = z_n² + c for n = 0, 1, 2, 3,  … with the starting value z₀ = 0 remains bounded as n approaches infinity

Examples of Mandelbrot set in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The complexity of the Mandelbrot set emerges in part because it is defined in terms of numbers that are themselves, well, complex. —Jordana Cepelewicz, Quanta Magazine, 27 Feb. 2024

The Prize Fighters The Mandelbrot set began with a prize. —Quanta Magazine, 26 Jan. 2024

And a friend of my mother’s gave me this program that could draw a Mandelbrot set on one of these little graphics calculators. —Leila Sloman, Quanta Magazine, 12 Jan. 2024

Images from the field of fractal geometry entered popular culture in the mid-1980s via wildly colored, psychedelic images of a fractal that Mandelbrot investigated and now bears his name, the Mandelbrot set. —Marissa Fessenden, Scientific American, 21 Dec. 2012

Others show hints of shapes that foreshadow the iconic Mandelbrot set. —Marissa Fessenden, Scientific American, 21 Dec. 2012

Word History

Etymology

Benoit Mandelbrot

First Known Use

1984, in the meaning defined above