Slightly off-topic, but since the question was asked by xyz888:
This may be off-base, but i wanted to ask this possibility: During Einstein's lifetime, he was known to be searching for a "universal" formula which he never could find within his lifetime. ..a formula that defines the entire universe. Isnt this, the Mandelbrot formula, the answer to his quest?
I believe his own formula (E=mc squared) mainly applies to earth.
and since I have some professional background in this area, I thought I'd put in my two cents:
Einstein was searching for a unified theory of gravitation and electromagentism, which were the only two types of forces known in his day. He believed that after he discovered general relativity, there must be some way to unify it with classical electromagnetic theory. Unfortunately, this was before quantum mechanics was generally accepted, and before the discovery of the other two currently known forces in the universe (the so-called "strong" and "weak" forces that apply to interactions between nuclear particles, like protons and neutrons). There was no way he could have possibly developed the unified theory he sought, because he just didn't have the necessary experimental data that we have today.
There is currently a very good theory unifying the three forces other than gravitation, and that theory is strongly rooted in quantum mechanics. General relativity, which is the currently accepted theory describing gravitation, is so fundamentally different from quantum mechanics that nobody currently has any idea how to unify the two. We all believe there must be a way -- after all, it's just one universe, right? -- but we're a long way from finding what it is.
I'm not sure the Mandelbrot set or fractals in general can describe how to unify general relativity with quantum mechanics, but some serious scientists are investigating whether the ability of systems with simple rules -- like z = z^2 + c -- to show highly complex behavior -- like fractals -- might be able to give some insight into how life evolved. To me, having spent a good ten years or so studying physics at the undergraduate and postgraduate level, this question, the question of how life evolved, is a much greater one than the grand unified field theory.
E=mc^2 is a part of special relativity, and it applies as much in the heart of a supernova as it does on earth.