Mandelbrot's in Heaven

Benoit Mandelbrot, RIP.

Rudy Rucker posted some pretty pictures of Mandlebrot sets, along with a personal story of meeting him, here (via).

I'm ashamed to say that when I heard this news, the very first thing I wondered was whether & how Jonathan Coulton would alter the lyrics to this fabulous song.

Update: In this interview (via), Coulton answers my question:

Will you be singing the song any differently now?
A lot of people have been asking, and I don’t think I’m going to change the lyrics. They’re factually incorrect now, but then so is my description of the M-Set and I never fixed that either. Mostly I think of it as a snapshot of the time when he was alive — it’s just how the song goes, that’s all.

Coulton also says this of my blog post title (not personally, just generally):

I feel a little strange every time someone quotes the song line “Mandlebrot’s in heaven.” That’s the obvious line to quote, but I feel bad that I was so glib about his future demise and now here it has actually happened.

Ah well, I guess it was obvious. But it's what I thought, the first moment I heard the news; I hadn't yet seen it elsewhere; so I used it.