He's the answer to my question of yesterday re: why Google's home page featured a fractal-laden logo.

This Algerian-French mathematician was born on February 3, 1893 (101 years ago yesterday) in Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria. He was only 25 when, in 1918, he published his monumental "Memoire sur L'iteration des Fonctions Rationelles," which instantly made him world-famous in the mathematics centers of his day.

As a soldier in World War I, Julia had been severely wounded in an attack on the French front designed to celebrate the Kaiser's birthday. He lost his nose, and had to wear a leather strap across his face for the rest of his life.

Although he was world-famous in the 1920s, his work was essentially forgotten until Benoit Mandelbrot, of the Mandelbrot set and fractal fame, brought it back to prominence in the 1970s.