- #1
nomadreid
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Suppose we are talking about a purely classical phenomena (OK, nothing is purely classical, but suppose we consider quantum effects as insignificant, that is, we ignore them). In this context, I came across someone talking about "a particle in chaotic continuous motion as the particle is subjected to a force". For me, this sounds impossible to take literally, since chaotic in its strict sense (not in the sense of hidden variables) would mean the lack of all predictability of its motion beyond the light-speed barrier (that is, its motion would be random, but not necessarily all factors would be random, as in "random variable", except perhaps the ) , and the force would add the predictability to the motion. So, the questions:
is it possible to talk of a classical particle being both literally chaotically moving and subject to a force at the same time? If so, does this mean that "chaotically" and "randomly" are different concepts? If not, then what better term would there be for a particle whose motion would be chaotic/random were it not for the force, but then under the influence of the force, some aspects of its motion would be predictable and others not? (For example, in a fixed three-dimensional space, the path traced out in a certain plane was determinate, but the motion in the third dimension was literally chaotic?) "Determinate with caveats" doesn't work, and "restricted chaos" sounds like an oxymoron.
is it possible to talk of a classical particle being both literally chaotically moving and subject to a force at the same time? If so, does this mean that "chaotically" and "randomly" are different concepts? If not, then what better term would there be for a particle whose motion would be chaotic/random were it not for the force, but then under the influence of the force, some aspects of its motion would be predictable and others not? (For example, in a fixed three-dimensional space, the path traced out in a certain plane was determinate, but the motion in the third dimension was literally chaotic?) "Determinate with caveats" doesn't work, and "restricted chaos" sounds like an oxymoron.