Chaos Theory

[Dinohunter]

As some of you know I study chaos theory and use it in many of my equations. I am posting this for some clarification on the theory.

It was made popular by Jurassic Park when Ian Malcolm uses it to criticize John Hammond. This was my first experience was with this movie and I have used it ever since.

Here are some links:
http://www.virtualchaos.org/
http://order.ph.utexas.edu/chaos/
http://www.hypertextbook.com/chaos/

Basically this is a theory on non-linear equations, used throughout the world to help understand total randomness and complete unpredictability. I have shown several examples in my other posts that I will use here.

Fig. 1:

Start off with a pool ball. Any color (but black). Put it in the middle. Now line it up exactly with white ball so that you can creat a line splitting the table in half long-wise. Hit the ball. Mark where it went, and where the balls were initially. Now hit the same ball, in the same position, and I guarantee it won't go to the same place. Thats Chaos theory. Its where the imperfections are amplified. In this case the surface of the ball may have dings or cracks, the table may be uneven, the felt fibers might be denser in one area than another.

Fig. 2:

Look back on the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. If they did not die like they did, its a very good chance we would not be here. They still would be. But nature selected them to die, thus creating us in the long run. See how that imperfection (the extinction) amplifies into a larger substance (us)?

Fig. 3:

Anything in turbulence shifts randomly. Just take a look at a water spout. Speed it up and you can see the water shifting in total randomness. But with a car, you can feel it work, see the Antenna shift in all certain ways, parts rattle. Turbulence is another key part in chaos theory. A way turbulence can also be used is in a political sense. Nobody expected Newt Gingrich to step down. But under the turbulent forces he did. See where I am getting to?

The are all examples from my previous posts here. I thought that as you read them they will get easier to understand. The links I posted are extremely good, the Textbook however is incredibly advanced and if anyone wants to do some chaos theory with me just contact me via private messaging.

I hope that helps.

[Dinohunter]

I just created a place to talk about such things, check it out please.

http://pub83.ezboard.com/bideasofthe22ndcentury

Thank you for looking at it.

[John Napkintosh]

The chaos theory is interesting, but it's important to know that the starting conditions need to be IDENTICAL for a comparison to produce any meaningful results.

In the billiards situation, it would be very difficult for a person to reproduce the scenario EXACTLY. The second time around, the ball placement would be slightly off, the amount of chalk on the stick would be slightly different, the power/angle/height of the stick during the shot would be different, the grip would be different, the sweat on the hands would be different, the lay of the felt would be different.

One would think that if the starting conditions are IDENTICAL, then the results would be identical, but maybe that's what the chaos theory is all about. My question is this - is the chaos theory supposed to account for the minute differences in all these factors? Or is it a theory that states that even under identical situations (and I do mean 'identical'), the outcome can still be different?

[TheMan5952]

yea, I heard of that, kinda weird to think about how differnet things would be of something different would have happend.