mem·o·ry·less·ness

Benoît B. Mandelbrot, a maverick mathematician who developed an innovative theory of roughness and applied it to physics, biology, finance and many other fields, died on Thursday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 85.

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Instead of rigorously proving his insights in each field, he said he preferred to “stimulate the field by making bold and crazy conjectures” — and then move on before his claims had been verified. This habit earned him some skepticism in mathematical circles.

bestofwikipedia:

In mathematics, Buffon’s needle problem is a question first posed in the 18th century by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon: Suppose we have a floor made of parallel strips of wood, each the same width, and we drop a needle onto the floor. What is the probability that the needle will lie across a line between two strips?  Buffon’s needle was the earliest problem in geometric probability to be solved; it can be solved using integral geometry. The solution, in the case where the needle is not greater that the width of the strips, can be used to design a Monte Carlo method for approximating the number pi. (via @mohankv)