Cosmology and the Universe According to the Mandelbrot Butterfly

Abstract

Imagine finding an ancient scroll describing how the universe came to be and how it will end, and then learning you may be the only person with the key or Rosetta stone that would allow someone to decipher it. A formula the author discovered 36 years ago plausibly reveals that scroll by providing a key and a Rosetta stone. However, apart from a short publication in 1987 and phone conversations with Benoit Mandelbrot in that timeframe there was little interest in my discovery, so the idea sat on my shelf for almost 10 years – but then new evidence appeared which changed prevailing beliefs in Cosmology and things got interesting. This paper revisits my ‘87 discovery and links discoveries and developments since then which make that discovery increasingly relevant to the advancement of cosmology.