Benoît B. Mandelbrot, a maverick mathematician who developed the field of fractal geometry and applied it to physics, biology, finance and many other fields, died on Thursday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 85.

Enlarge This Image

Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press
Benoît B. Mandelbrot, left, and James A. Yorke, sharing a Japan Prize in 2003 for their pioneering work in chaos theory.
Enlarge This Image

Wolfgang Beyer
Graphic representations of the Mandelbrot set have been implanted in popular culture, gracing T-shirts and album covers.