Editing Udo of Aachen

{{Short description|Fictional monk from a 1999 hoax}}
{{nofootnotes|date=June 2020}}
'''Udo of [[Aachen]]''' (c.1200–1270) is a fictional [[monk]], a creation of British technical writer Ray Girvan, who introduced him in an [[April Fool's]] hoax article in 1999. According to the article, Udo was an illustrator and theologian who discovered the [[Mandelbrot set]] some 700 years before [[Benoit Mandelbrot]].

Udo's works were allegedly discovered by the also-fictional Bob Schipke, a [[Harvard University|Harvard]] mathematician, who supposedly saw a picture of the Mandelbrot set in an [[illumination (manuscript)|illumination]] for a 13th-century [[Carol (music)|carol]]. Girvan also attributed Udo as a mystic and poet whose poetry was set to music by [[Carl Orff]] with the haunting ''[[O Fortuna (Orff)|O Fortuna]]'' in [[Carmina Burana (Orff)|Carmina Burana]]. Later Schipke uncovered Udo's work which described how Udo had come to this kind of design while working on a method of determining whether one's soul would reach heaven.

==Aspects of the hoax==

The poetry of ''O Fortuna'' was actually the work of itinerant [[goliard]]s, found in the German Benedictine monastery of [[Benediktbeuern Abbey]].

The hoax was lent an air of credibility because often [[medieval monks]] did discover scientific and mathematical theories, only to have them hidden or shelved due to persecution or simply ignored because publication prior to the invention of the printing press was difficult at best. Mr. Girvan adds to this suggestion by associating Udo with several other more legitimate discoveries where an author was considered ahead of his time in terms of a scientific theory of some sort that is now established as a mainstream theory but was considered [[fringe science]] at the time.

Another aspect of the deception was that it was very common for pre-20th century mathematicians to spend incredible amounts of time on hand calculations such as a [[logarithm table]] or [[trigonometric functions]]. Calculating all of the points for a Mandelbrot set is a comparable activity that would seem tedious today but would be routine for people of the time.

== References ==

* {{cite web
 |author      = Ray Girvan
 |date        = 1999-04-01
 |title       = The Mandelbrot Monk
 |url         = https://gauss.math.yale.edu/fractals/MandelSet/MandelMonk/MandelMonk.html
 |work        = 
 |url-status     = 
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20021027064253/http://classes.yale.edu/Fractals/MandelSet/MandelMonk/MandelMonk.html
 |archive-date = 2002-10-27
}}
* {{cite web
| author = John Allen Paulos
| date = 1999-04-01
| title = Monk's "Startling" Math Discovery
| url = https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WhosCounting/story?id=98615
| work = Who's Counting, [[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]]
| author-link = John Allen Paulos
}}

== External links ==

* {{cite web
| author = Garry J. Tee
|date=August 2001
| title = Mandelbrot Monk
| url = http://www.massey.ac.nz/~wwifs/mathnews/Nzms82/news82.htm#monk
| work = Newsletter of the New Zealand Mathematical Society, number 82
}}
* {{cite web
| author = Jeff "Hemos" Bates
| date = 2001-03-22
| title = Mandelbrot Set Originally Found In 13th Century (Early April's Fool)
| url = http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/22/1655256&tid=14
| publisher = [[Slashdot]]
}}
*{{cite web
 |author      = John Armstrong
 |title       = Hoax!
 |url         = http://unapologetic.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/hoax/
 |publisher   = The Unapologetic Mathematician
 |date        = March 2008
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20080402234353/http://unapologetic.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/hoax/
 |archive-date = 2008-04-02
}}

[[Category:Nonexistent people used in hoaxes]]
[[Category:Fictional Christian monks]]
[[Category:Fictional mathematicians]]
[[Category:April Fools' Day jokes]]
[[Category:Fractals]]
[[Category:1999 hoaxes]]