Different systems can share a mathematical description of turbulence without sharing their underlying physical or social causes.

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But the variety of natural phenomena is boundless while, despite all appearances to the contrary, the number of really distinct mathematical concepts and tools at our disposal is surprisingly small. When a man goes to clear a jungle, he has relatively few types of tools. To cut, perhaps a machete. to knock down, a bulldozer, to burn, fire. Science is like that. When we explore the vast realm of natural and human behavior, we find our most useful tools of measurement and calculation are based on surprisingly few basic ideas. When a man has a hammer, all he sees around him are nails to hit. So it should be no great surprise that, with our small number of effective mathematical tools we can find analogies between a wind tunnel and a Reuters screen. My life's work has been to develop a new mathematical tool to add to man's small survival kit. I call it fractal and multifractal geometry. It is the study of roughness, of the irregular and jagged. I coined its name in 1975.

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A gale to a rally, a hurricane to a crash? In terms of the underlying causes, certainly not. But mathematically, yes. It is an extraordinary feature of science that the most diverse, seemingly unrelated phenomena, can be described with the same mathematical tools. The same quadratic equation with which the ancients drew right angles to build their temples, can be used today, by a banker to calculate the yield to maturity of a new, two-year bond. The same techniques of calculus developed by Newton and Leibniz two centuries ago to study the orbits of Mars and Mercury can be used today by a civil engineer to calculate the maximum stress on a new bridge, or the volume of water to pass beneath it. Now, none of this means that the bridge, river, and planets work the same way, or that an archaeologist at the Acropolis should help price an Accenture bond. Likewise, the wind and the markets are quite distinct. One is a phenomenon of nature, the other a creature of man.