The chaos games science world

Whether this will prove to be fruitful heresy or just plain heresy, no one knows. But some of those who thought physics might be working its way into a corner now look to chaos as a way out" Chaos theory has been instrumental in modelling. Before chaos theory, engineers were unable to model things like friction and turbulence, instead using perturbation theory. Gleick talks at great length about the founding of chaos theory and the butterfly effect, by meteorologist Edward Lorenz.

Instead of starting the whole run over, he started midway through. To give the machine its initial conditions, he typed the numbers straight from the earlier printout. Then he walked down the hall to get away from the noise and drink a cup of coffee. When he returned an hour later, he saw something unexpected, something that planted a seed for a new science.

Lorenz had copied the numbers into the machine himself. The program had not changed. Yet as he stared at the new printout, Lorenz saw his weather diverging so rapidly from the pattern of the last run that, within just a few months, all resemblance had disappeared. He looked at one set of numbers, then back at the other. He might as well have chosen two random weathers out of a hat. His first thought was that another vacuum tube had gone bad. Suddenly he realized the truth.

There had been no malfunction. The problem lay in the numbers he had typed. On the printout, to save space, just three appeared:. Lorenz had entered the shorter, rounded-off numbers, assuming that the difference—one part in a thousand—was inconsequential.

It was a reasonable assumption. If a weather satellite can read ocean surface temperature to within one part in a thousand, its operators consider themselves lucky.

It used a purely deterministic system of equations. Given a particular starting point, the weather would unfold exactly the same way each time. Given a slightly different starting point, the weather should unfold in a slightly different way. A small numerical error was like a small puff of wind—surely the small puffs faded or canceled each other out before they could change important, large-scale features of the weather.

Examined in color through the adjustable window of a computer screen, the Mandelbrot set seems more fractal than fractals, so rich is its complication across scales. But here is a paradox: to send a full description of the set over a transmission line requires just a few dozen characters of code.

All super-interesting and highly informative! I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in chaos theory, or even the sciences in general. It is exceptionally well-written, researched, illustrated, and delivered. Jul 02, Gayle rated it liked it. Although I truly enjoy the way James Gleick can take a complicated subject apart for the inexpert, I did not enjoy this book as much as I did The Information.

I caught myself skipping, counting pages to the end of the chapter, even yawning and dropping off. Not a good sign for me. Some chapters had me on the edge of my seat, or thinking "Ah ha!

That's how that works. It is obvious that Mr. Gleick enjoys the subjects that he writes about and it is difficult to not become affected with his enthusiasm. However, in Chaos , his excitement about the subject, tends to cause him to wander, attempting to get every single detail in that he can.

When the first sentence of a chapter tells you that so-and-so showed up at the front door of someone's lab, I like to know who that person is and why he might be there fairly quickly, not 10 pages later. By that time I'm rereading pages thinking I must have missed who this person is and why he's standing at the door of someone's lab.

I've also forgotten whose lab! Overall, I did enjoy the book and will probably watch for more by this author. But The Information is my favorite so far. Too heavy on human interest, too light on maths, and Gleick has read more Kuhn than is good for him.

It's another journalist writing about mathematics, though this one anticipated the Wikipedia Age by two decades. It's not what I was looking for, but exactly what I expecte Too heavy on human interest, too light on maths, and Gleick has read more Kuhn than is good for him. It's not what I was looking for, but exactly what I expected, and a complete layperson could realistically enjoy it.

Jan 19, Charlene rated it it was amazing Shelves: mindgasms , philosophy , chaos-complexity-emergence , favorites , general-science , innovation , physics. Wonderful, easy to understand book about what chaos is and how scientists came to understand it. Fractals are the most amazing things. You only get one life. Make sure learning about fractals is part of it. Such a thing of beauty. Oct 27, Andrej Karpathy rated it it was ok.

I read this a while ago but I can't remember it being a very spectacular or enjoyable read. Disclaimer: I took chaos mathematics at school so I was reasonably familiar with most presented concepts, which could have made it a little more boring. Mar 25, Lemar rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction , science. These men and women crossed academic disciplines of math, physics.

In that dissipation new forms are born. The ambitious move to use math in describing irregular shapes like leaves or human arteries meant going beyond the bounds of math that worked only on the kind of nice clean polygon shapes that, actually, never occur in nature.

This is nonlinear geometry. I suggest putting on some Jimi and a video of the Mandelbrot fractal set. Jul 14, Chaitanya Sethi rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction , science , favorites. To be fair on Gleick, this subject feels so vast that one doesn't know where to start and how to start talking about it.

I could only 4. I could only read pages at a go, even lesser sometimes. So what works against it is that the language isn't as easy to follow as it could have been. For those who don't have a background in Science, it will be hard to follow as it employs technical jargon that it could not avoid. Some descriptions and concepts are written in a dry manner which makes you lose interest.

Why am I ranking it a 4. Well, firstly for ambition. It does an appreciable job of introducing a fascinating idea. It is successfully able to spark joy about the subject. Secondly, it treats the scientists involved over , as mentioned in the notes as people and not just prodigies. It is able to highlight the ups and downs of charting a new field. Thirdly, for what it emphasizes - that knowledge, and discovery of knowledge, is an iterative process that builds on itself over years and years of effort.

That Science doesn't exist in a vacuum, in labs and equipment. It may be understood there but it exists in the world around us. In the sky above, the water dripping from the faucet, the heart beating over a billion times just to keep you alive, the snowflake forming as it falls, epidemics withering and boosting populations.

It exists as complex behaviour in simple systems, as simple behaviour in complex systems. Generations of human curiosity birthing knowledge. It's hard to call a book eye-opening without coming across as cheesy or over-the-top but this subject really makes you look at the world with a fresh eye.

It's not an easy read and by all means, I will immediately move to other resources to understand this topic better. But to be able to spark that curiosity - that is an achievement in itself. For that, it deserves to be read. The future is disorder. A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It is one of the most awe-inspiring and also difficult books I have read. I have only understood it partially despite being an engineering graduate with a strong hold on mathematics and algorithms.

Butterfly effect, nonlinear equations, "attractor", fractals - It was as if I had entered a whole new world! Strongly recommended! Readers also enjoyed. About James Gleick. James Gleick. James Gleick born August 1, is an American author, journalist, and biographer, whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology. Three of these books have been Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists, and they have been translated into more than twenty languages. Born in New York City, USA, Gleick attended Harvard College, graduating in with a degree in James Gleick born August 1, is an American author, journalist, and biographer, whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology.

Having worked for the Harvard Crimson and freelanced in Boston, he moved to Minneapolis, where he helped found a short-lived weekly newspaper, Metropolis. After its demise, he returned to New York and joined as staff of the New York Times, where he worked for ten years as an editor and reporter. In , he founded The Pipeline, an early Internet service. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights.

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