"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science."
- Albert Einstein
It is the source of all true art and science."
- Albert Einstein
The mysteries of life are heady to humans. We crave to solve them. We crave to know their origin. We crave to understand them. I like to think that scientists have a list of puzzles they see as a challenge to resolve and right at the top, there 's the most unsolvable. Nature is just one that will never be completely understood. It's unpredictable and because we are not allowed to understand is the exact same reason why we want it.
Edward Norton Lorenz, an American mathematician and meteorologist, was fascinated in figuring out if the weather could be predicted. He started to play around with a computer program in which created replications of weather to a certain formula that you would input. The program would give certain outputs of numbers in a certain sequence and he copied the middle of one run and inserted into the computer. Instead of starting from the beginning, the assimilation would start from the middle of a run. He thought this change wouldn't affect anything and expected the same weather from the run starting at the beginning but found the weather was totally different than before!
Now, The Chaos Theory is what attempts to explain this. The Chaos Theory is a mathematical sub-discipline that studies complex systems. A complex system is defined as systems that contain so many motion or factors that make its behavior impossible to predict because there are so many things to take into account. Weather is a complex system and part of the reason why weather predictions are often wrong is because there are so many factors that influence the weather and change it every second. Regardless of the many factors affecting a complex system, Lorenz found that complex system all seem to seek an equilibrium of some sort called an attractor. Even though complex systems are unpredictable, he believes there is a way to make a approximation of the unknown.
As a summary, the main key points of The Chaos Theory are:
The smallest change can have a large effect. Hm... I wonder where have I heard that before? Oh I know. Remember those science fiction movies that taught you that if you ever were to travel back in time you should not change anything because that will change the present? Yea... Makes me wonder how many works I've read without even realizing this theory was applied.
Jose.
Edward Norton Lorenz, an American mathematician and meteorologist, was fascinated in figuring out if the weather could be predicted. He started to play around with a computer program in which created replications of weather to a certain formula that you would input. The program would give certain outputs of numbers in a certain sequence and he copied the middle of one run and inserted into the computer. Instead of starting from the beginning, the assimilation would start from the middle of a run. He thought this change wouldn't affect anything and expected the same weather from the run starting at the beginning but found the weather was totally different than before!
Now, The Chaos Theory is what attempts to explain this. The Chaos Theory is a mathematical sub-discipline that studies complex systems. A complex system is defined as systems that contain so many motion or factors that make its behavior impossible to predict because there are so many things to take into account. Weather is a complex system and part of the reason why weather predictions are often wrong is because there are so many factors that influence the weather and change it every second. Regardless of the many factors affecting a complex system, Lorenz found that complex system all seem to seek an equilibrium of some sort called an attractor. Even though complex systems are unpredictable, he believes there is a way to make a approximation of the unknown.
As a summary, the main key points of The Chaos Theory are:
- A tiny difference in initial parameters ( conditions ) will result in a completely different behavior of a complez system.
- Complex systems seek an specific situation or equilibrium that can be either static ( Attractor ) or dynamic ( Strange Attractor ).
- The Uncertainty Principal prohibits accuracy.
The smallest change can have a large effect. Hm... I wonder where have I heard that before? Oh I know. Remember those science fiction movies that taught you that if you ever were to travel back in time you should not change anything because that will change the present? Yea... Makes me wonder how many works I've read without even realizing this theory was applied.
Jose.
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