Professor Benoit Mandelbrot, 'approximately 711/2' going on, he says, for ever, is no ordinary scientist. Known worldwide for his investigations into equations that produce mathematical shapes which have been called the most complex on Earth, he is not exactly your standard ivory-tower dweller.
The man called the Father of Fractals does not seem averse to the idea of being an icon of the 1970s and 1980s hippy and rave music scenes.
'It doesn't bother me as I don't look at it. I don't pay it any attention,' is his initial reaction to the plethora of objects that have made many people - other people - rich from his work defining fractal equations such as the Mandelbrot set.
The patterns have thrown up whole businesses producing T-shirts, mugs, videos, CD-ROMS, fractal art and even fractal music that show off the amazing beauty of the equations.
The equations themselves are simple; the pictorial representations of them by fast-working computer are among the most fantastic, swirling, colourful psychedelic wonders imaginable - a record sleeve designer's dream.
Not only that, but as the computer zooms into any one area of the pattern, it repeats itself in ever-smaller scale, unfolding in greater and greater detail in an almost dizzying, hypnotic way that no torturer or rave disco lover could hope to better.
But though Professor Mandelbrot says he pays no attention to the products, he points out his wish that non-scientists should know more about the science in the ivory towers.
