Mandelbrot died. And the world is a little dimmer.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/insidenova/2010/10/goodbye-to-the-father-of-fractals.html

Mandelbrot was one of the greats. He pretty much turned fractals into something math can discuss, and as it's one of the more important ideas of mathematics, it's one of the greater losses. I was just saying the other day that Mandelbrot is perhaps the most important mathematician of the 20th century.