Chaos and Science.

Chaos was recently scientifically experimented by the meteorologist Edward Lorentz. In 1960 he was working on a problem of weather prediction. He discovered that just a small change in the initial conditions of his equations could dramatically change the long term behaviour of the system.This effect came to be known as "the butterfly effect". With a starting number of 2, the final result can be entirely different from the same system with a starting value of 2.000001. Such a small amount of difference in a measurement might be considered experimental noise, background noise , or inaccuracy of the equipment. Such things are imposible to avoid in even the most isolated lab. It is impossible to acheive such a level of accuracy. From this theory, Lorentz stated that it is imposible to predict the weather accuratly. However, this discovery led Lorentz on to other aspects of what eventually came to be known as chaos theory. Can a butterfly stirring the air of Naupli today can transform storms in New York the next day or three months later? Watch two bit of foam flowing side by side at the bottom of a waterfall. What can you guess about how close they were at the top ? Nothing.

Where chaos begins, classical science stops. For as long as the world has had physicists inquiring into the laws of nature, it has suffered a special ignorance about disorder : in the atmosphere, in the turbulent sea, in the fluctuations of wildlife fluctuations, in the oscillations of the heart and brain, in the shape of clouds, the path of lightings, the microscopic intertwining of blood vessels, the galactic clustering of stars, the shape of the joints of the skull. Aspects of Chaos show up everywhere around the world from the currents of the ocean and songs of the birds to the effects of turbulence and the feelings under the feet while walking bear feet on the grass. Physiologists found a surprising order in the chaos that develops in the human heart. Economists dug out old stock price data and tried a new kind of analylis.

The acknowledgement of chaos is a revolution, not of technology, like the laser or the computer revolution, but a revolution of ideas. Many scientists beleive that the twentieth century will be known for only three theories : Relativity, Quantom mechanics, and Chaos. As one physicist puts it : " Relativity eliminated the Newtonian illusion of absolute space and time ; quantum theoty eliminated the Newtinian dream of a controllable measurement process ; and chaos eliminates the Laplacian fantasy of deterministic predictability"

Scientists can now witness this chaotic harmony of self organisation and recreate it using fractal geometry or the "Thumbprint of god".

 

Fractals, the Mathematical understanding of Chaos.