Chaos

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Knowledge, however, is not fragmented. The natural world exists as a whole with there being no inconsistencies in the entirety of the observable universe. Human understanding of it, sadly, is anything but complete. No matter how much we advance as a civilization, as a species, we can only sing to the rhythm set by nature. The so called "laws" of nature are nothing but patterns discerned through observations and contemplations. But nature itself doesn't obey any laws. These exist for our comfort. And if it happens, as it has happened many times, that nature seems to "violate" the laws, our discomfort compels us to create better laws. Laws that are more satisfactory, more comforting. The natural world is an unending mystery.

An enhanced ebook edition was released by Open Road Media in 2011, adding embedded video and hyperlinked notes. [6] Reception [ edit ] Simple and determined (in every detail) systems can behave in an extremely complicated way, apparently random and almost unpredictable. Telephony reduced the barriers to telecommunication by reducing the middle man, saved money for businesses by reducing the need for messengers and increasing the speed of messages. Telephony also drove further information technology innovations. Phone companies (or THE phone company at the time) devoted considerable resources to dealing with problems of long distance transmission of voice information over inherently "lossy" copper wires. Sifting meaningful signal from distance-induced static and noise became of focus of some particularly talented engineers. Analysis of this problem lead to mathematical abstractions as they tried to reduce "information" to the lowest possible common denominator. How small of a signal can carry a message? How can "message" be defined mathematically? The idea of the "bit" became common and the field of information theory began to take off. It had existed before, but it had never flowered in the way that modern communications forced it to. Claude Shannon is a central figure in the development of modern information theory and his revolutionary ideas are quoted extensively throughout the book. Parallel developments in information theory occurred with Alan Turing who developed the theoretical basis for computing before any of the hardware existed.In all of science there lie deep and irresolute fissures that necessitate the existence of many mutually exclusive domains of knowledge. Each with its own lexicon, icons, dogmas, turfs to defend and legacies to uphold. Each operating relatively independently with little communication with or interest in what goes on outside their four walls.

In each field, also, the initial work was most often either resisted or ignored. Precisely because chaos was popping up all over, with just a few people in each of many different scientific fields, it was easy for scientists in any field to notice a paper or presentation, note the fact that is was completely different from the methods, logic, math that had relevance for their own work, that much of the work was in fact being done in other fields--and dismiss it. For new doctoral students, there were no mentors in chaos theory, no jobs, no journals devoted to chaos theory. It completely upended ideas about how the natural world worked. It was heady, exciting--and much harder to explain than to demonstrate. Much of what the first generation of chaos scientists did is incredibly easy to demonstrate with a laptop computer today--but most of these chaos pioneers were working with handheld calculators, mainframe computers with dump terminals and limited and unreliable access for something so peripheral to the institution's perceived mission, computers whose only output device was a plotter. A small army of bloggers with their laptops and little gadgets will record history for us across space and time for free.Science is just one of the ways to understand nature. It is arguably the best way. But even science doesn't have all the answers. It is subjectively elegant and delicate though. There lies an inherent beauty in the simplicity of its systemization. A heady ephemerality that is often missed by those who prostrate at its altar. Worship of science defiles its method and thus destroys in essence what is being worshipped. Apparently this book made a big splash when it was first published. I remember the excitement around chaos theory and fractals at the time. And I have one favorite comic story "Daytripper" which depicts so many alternate deaths a man can die in his life. Actually, really we never know, how many alternate lives we are living every time we have been able to cross one of the busy roads successfully !

Untitled (NYC98FA047 crash narrative)". National Transportation Safety Board. US Government. Archived from the original on 17 October 2014 . Retrieved 12 October 2014. Chaos: Making a New Science was the first popular book about chaos theory. It describes the Mandelbrot set, Julia sets, and Lorenz attractors without using complicated mathematics. It portrays the efforts of dozens of scientists whose separate work contributed to the developing field. The text remains in print and is widely used as an introduction to the topic for the mathematical layperson. The book approaches the history of chaos theory chronologically, starting with Edward Norton Lorenz and the butterfly effect, through Mitchell Feigenbaum, and ending with more modern applications. For the techies however, only the latest and greatest will work for them. See, they like to be modern. A little too much at times. And the car accident scene from "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldoHL... But ultimately none of this is going to be the lasting impact of this book. The reading pleasure and the hero worship of these daredevils is transient after all. For me, the real impact is that it has changed the way I look at the ordinary everyday world - the leaves, the trees, the pebbles, the pattern on the peels of an orange - everything is strangely magnified and beautiful now. I see the poetry of constant motion and evolution everywhere and I can feel the science of Chaos intuitively as I take my long walks. I can see Strange Attractors and Fractals and unstable equilibriums in the most mundane places. And this is the greatest gift of the book.FA ID: NYC98FA047". National Transportation Safety Board. US Government. Archived from the original on 17 October 2014 . Retrieved 12 October 2014.