The area of the Mandelbrot set (Q1185490)

The Mandelbrot set \(M\) consists of the complex numbers \(c\) for which the Julia set of \(z^ 2+c\) is connected. The set \(M\) is compact and connected and there is a conformal map of the form \(z+b_ 0+b_ 1z^{- 1}+b_ 2z^{-2}+\dots\) from \(| z|>1\) to the complement of \(M\). The authors compute the first 240000 coefficients \(b_ k\) recursively and note that these satisfy \(-1<mb_ m<1\). They give exact values for \(m=(2^{n+1}-3)2^ n\) to check the accuracy of the computer results. Then they estimate the area \(A\) of \(M\) from above using that \(A=\pi(1- b^ 2_ 1-2b^ 2_ 2-3b^ 2_ 3-\dots)\) and from below by geometrical methods. They find that \(1.374<A<1.728\) and, more heuristically, a lower bound in the range 1.42 to 1.62 and an upper bound in the range 1.66 to 1.71. They conclude by saying that this discrepancy either shows that the series for \(A\) converges remarkably slowly (upper bound too small) or that \(M\) is even more phathological than first imagined (lower bound too small).