Deterministic Chaos

the hiatus was too much ... so I'll break it and keep it brief as well ... this thought was instigated when I was in bangalore recently with some science buffs ...

when people speak science and use jargons many express a fit of revulsion ... woooow out of phase ... well the fact of the matter is that these people make simple observations in life, the perusal of which gives ways to branches of science ...

okie let me keep this simple ... ur having ur coffee ... resting ur arm at the table and all of a sudden a jolt causes it to spill a bit oops ... ur caretaker (mother / spouse) is not around n it just dries-up ... n u move on ... when ur caretaker is back they find it dried up and just decide to whipe it clean ... NO WAIT ... did u observe a pattern in which it dried up ... the center portion is empty while only the edges have concentrated ... hmm thats wierd ... this is where a scientists thinks different ... why? (not why do they think :p ... but why to what they observed)

it is an effect of the angle at which the fluid hits the surface ... still not yet completely characterized and is under study ...

another thing that caught my attention was the words "Deterministic Chaos" ... hold on a sec ... what kind of self-contradicting stuff is this ... so I grabbed the buk n ran through a few pages ... n it spurred some interpretations in my mind ... what is chaos? ... reminds me of how the X-Ray got its name ... well they didn't have a clue as to what it was and hence the name ... just as variables in seq x,y etc in mathematics :) ... as I read more, this clause caught my attention -

"Chaos is the rule in nature, not an exception"

these chaos theories and stuff go on to say why newtonian world (where laws are governed by the laws of motion and such promulgated by newton) is far from perfect ... relativity and quantum physics sought to explain its follies ... Chaos theory seems to be the next big thing ... no more specifics ...

what is chaos? ... that in which we do not see a pattern .. well science defines it as - when u cannot predict the system accurately over prolonged periods ... fair enough ... now dyu see why is weather forecast so very difficult ...

chaos originates in a lot of ways ... every system start @ T0 with some initial conditions ... with infinetesimally small variations, the result can often seem chaotic ... quite simply given to some missing attributes in the system that we fail to comprehend ... it is said that even dust can affect the weather and climatic changes in the globe ... startled? ... I guess it too conspicuous now ...

computers have a certain limit of precision ... and this gives way to deviations from the actual path of a system during simulations ... and these minor imprecisions can cause major changes in the simulations ... which is why weather simulations seem quite whimsical in subsequent runs ...

amazing isn't it? there is so much more in this world that we do not comprehend ... belive me science is not about obscurity as many think ... and not as arcane as people believe ... we just try to explain the most simplistic of things in nature ... hope a few souls are convinced about the mathematics and science that surrounds us ... wish more folks would embrace this just as much as philosophy and stuff ... u don't need to be a geek to understand science ...

a short primer on Deterministic Chaos for those interested ... google for more ;)