The Importance of Drawing
Often Mandelbrot and his peers — the drawing above was penned by Adrien Douady and John Hubbard, who made vital contributions to the mathematics which took Mandelbrot's name — eschewed computers in favor of drawing by hand. Though computer limitations played a role in this choice, there was something cognitively powerful about having a direct, manual connection to their work.
"In order to relate the visual shapes that appeared on a computer's screen to mathematical theory, they had to be worked with," explained Samuel. "The hand was used to understand the structure."
Image: Adrien Douady & John Hubbard. Private collection. [high-resolution]
