Michael Frame

{{Short description|American mathematician}}

{{Multiple issues|{{Third-party|date=July 2021}}}}

Michael Frame is an American mathematician and retired Yale University professor.{{cite web|title=Michael Frame {{!}} Faculty of Arts and Sciences|url=https://fas.yale.edu/book/faculty-retirement-tributes-2016/michael-frame|website=fas.yale.edu|access-date=2020-05-05}} He is a co-author, along with Amelia Urry, of Fractal Worlds: Grown, Built, and Imagined.{{cite web|title=Fractal Worlds {{!}} Yale University Press|url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300197877/fractal-worlds|website=yalebooks.yale.edu|access-date=2020-05-05}} At Yale, he was a colleague of Benoit Mandelbrot and helped Mandelbrot develop a curriculum within the mathematics department.

Early years and education

Michael Frame was born in 1951 and grew up in St. Albans, West Virginia.{{cite web|title=Small Things and Big Things – The New Journal|date=26 October 2011|url=http://www.thenewjournalatyale.com/2011/10/small-things-and-big-things/|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-05}} After leaving his physics major because the lab requirement was "something in biophysics with killing frogs," Frame, a vegetarian, received a bachelor's degree in mathematics at Union College as a first-generation college student. In 1978, he completed a PhD in mathematics at Tulane University.

Teaching career

Michael Frame came to work at Yale University at the invitation of his colleague Benoit Mandelbrot. At Yale, Frame called himself "the stupidest guy in the department...the dimmest bulb in the pack here," and focused on his teaching contributions.{{cite web|title=The Frame-Work of Fractals|url=http://www.yalescientific.org/2010/04/the-frame-work-of-fractals/|last=Yu|first=Sherwin|date=2010-04-24|website=Yale Scientific Magazine|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-05}} He received the McCredie Prize for best use of technology in teaching at Yale College, the Dylan Hixon '88 Prize for teaching excellence in the natural sciences, and the Yale Phi Beta Kappa chapter's DeVane medal for undergraduate teaching.

Work with Mandelbrot

Benoit Mandelbrot includes a section on Michael Frame in his posthumously published autobiography The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick.{{Cite book|last=Mandelbrot, Benoit B.|title=The fractalist : memoir of a scientific maverick|date=14 January 2014|isbn=978-0-307-38991-6|edition=First Vintage books|location=New York|oclc=868856534}} In the section, called "Michael Frame, Friend and Colleague," he calls Frame an "indispensable" professor.

In 1997, Mandelbrot and Frame held a meeting of teachers of fractal geometry. According to Mandelbrot, as far as he knew, this was the "first scientific meeting totally dedicated to the teaching of fractals. This eventually culminated in the 2002 publication of the book Fractals, Graphics, and Mathematics Education, which was co-authored by Frame and Mandelbrot.{{Cite book|title=Fractals, graphics, and mathematics education|date=2002|publisher=Mathematical Association of America|others=Frame, Michael., Mandelbrot, Benoit B.|isbn=0-88385-169-5|location=[Washington, DC]|oclc=50032121}}

References