The Butterfly Effect

2009-11-24 09:45

The butterfly effect anno 1914

Excerpt from Henri Poincaré's Science and Method (1914), where he tries to address the question "How can chance emerge in a deterministic world?"

"A very small cause which escapes our notice determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and then we say the effect is due to chance.

If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation of that same universe at a succeeding moment.

But even if it were the case that the natural laws had no longer any secret for us, we could still only know the initial situation approximately.

If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we would say that the phenomenon had been predicted.

But it is not always so; it may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.

A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter. Prediction becomes impossible and we have the fortuitous phenomenon."

Postad av Martin Kaarup

Kommentarer (0)   Kategorier:  Chaos Theory    The Butterfly Effect    Predictability    Chance    Newtonian Mechanics

2009-11-24 09:33

The butterfly effect anno 1390

For Want of a Nail (1390)

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of a horse, the rider was lost;
For want of a rider, the battle was lost;
For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost!
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

- John Gower

Postad av Martin Kaarup

Kommentarer (0)   Kategorier:  Chaos Theory    The Butterfly Effect