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J. C. Sprott |
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Department of Physics |
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University of Wisconsin - Madison |
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Presented at the |
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UW Faculty Coterie |
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On December 14, 2004 |
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Randomness conceals our ignorance |
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Simplicity can produce complexity |
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Chaos requires determinism |
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The rules provide insight |
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Populations of cities |
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Size of moon craters |
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Size of solar flares |
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Size of computer files |
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Casualties in wars |
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Occurrence of personal names |
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Number of papers scientists write |
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Number of citation received |
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Sales of books, music, … |
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Individual wealth, personal income |
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Many others … |
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Chaos is the unpredictable behavior of
deterministic systems |
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It is sensitive to initial conditions (the
“butterfly effect”) |
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It produces erratic fluctuations and never
repeats |
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Systems that produce fractal spatial patterns
usually exhibit temporal chaos |
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You tend to befriend friends of your friends |
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You tend to mirror others’ friendliness toward
you |
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You have a limited capacity for maintaining
friendships |
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Many simple models exhibit self-organization
(the spontaneous development of complex structures). |
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The 2nd law of thermodynamics (increasing
disorder) is not violated since these systems are far from equilibrium
(driven by energy flow). |
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If there is intelligent design in nature, it is
at a more fundamental level (the underlying laws of nature) than its
proponents commonly suppose. |
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http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/
lectures/selforg.ppt (this talk) |
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http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/ |
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chaostsa/ (my book on Chaos) |
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sprott@physics.wisc.edu (contact me) |
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Notes