Some Historical Background
The groundwork for this subject was begun in the early part of this
century mainly by two French mathematicians, Gaston Julia and Pierre
Fatou. Julia, after whom these sets were named, was a soldier during
World War I and, during an offensive designed to celebrate the Kaiser's
birthday, was wounded. He lost his nose, and, after that, had to wear a
leather mask. There was a great deal of work done on this subject for
several years, but late in the 1920s the area died out. The subject was
renewed in the late 1970s through the computer experiments of Dr. Benoit
Mandelbrot of Yale University. In honor of Dr. Mandelbrot, one of the
sets which he explored was named after him. Other mathematicians such as
Douady, Hubbard, and Sullivan also worked on this subject exploring more
of the mathematics than the applications. Since the late 1970s this
subject has been at the forefront of contemporary mathematics.
Researchers such as Dr. Robert L. Devaney of Boston University have been
exploring this subject with the aid of modern computers. Most of the
resources used for this paper are books by Dr. Devaney.