term paper on chaos
Where chaos begins, classical science ends. Ever since physicists inquired into the laws of nature, they began to explore the irregular side of nature, the erratic and discontinuous side, which has always puzzled scientists. They did not attempt to understand disorder in the atmosphere, the turbulent sea, the oscillations of the heart and brain, or the fluctuations of wildlife populations. All of these things were taken for granted until in the 1970's. Then American and European scientists began to investigate the randomness of nature. They were physicists, biologists, chemists and mathematicians but they were all seeking one thing: connections between different kinds of irregularity. Physiologists found a surprising order in the chaos that develops in the human heart, the prime cause of a sudden, unexplained death. Ecologists explored the rise and fall of gypsy moth populations. Economists dug out old stock price data and tried a new kind of analysis. The insights that emerged led directly into the natural world- the shapes of clouds, the paths of lightning, the microscopic intertwining of blood vessels, the galactic clustering of stars. (Gleick 32)
He thought about these things quietly, without producing any work. (Kranser 171) When most natural systems are modeled, their mathematical representations do not produce straight lines on graphs; these systems outputs are extremely difficult to predict. The first Chaos theorists, the scientists who set the discipline in motion, shared certain sensibilities. By changing what goes into a system, we should be able to tell what comes out of it. (Hilborn 492) The Complexity Theory has developed from mathematics, biology, and chemistry, but mostly from physics and particularly thermodynamics, the study of turbulence leading to the understanding of self-organizing systems and system states (equilibrium, near equilibrium, the edge of chaos, and chaos). A flag snaps back and forth in the wind. Before the chaos theory was developed, most scientists studied nature and other random things using linear systems. They believe that they are looking for the whole. (Barrow 124) However, the pile of stones, which appears to be a simple system, is actually very complex. However, with each ball it collides with, the ball strays farther and farther from the intended path. A group of stones which do not touch one another are not a system, because there is no interaction. (Gleick 28) A very small cause, which escapes our notice, determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and then we say that the effect is due to chance. One of Lorenz's best accomplishments supporting the Chaos Theory was the Lorenz Attractor.
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