- #1
mnedelko
- 1
- 0
Dear Physics Forum community.
Please allow me tro preface the following by stating that I am a novice to the concept of chaos theory. Although I do understand the general concept behind Turing, Bellousov, Laurenz and Madelbrot's concepts, I am not entirely familiar with the mathematical basis of their scientific discoveries.
However, reading about the implications of the Chaos Theory I feel I am missing one important point and I hoped you would be able to shed some light on my question.
The Chaos Theory was heralded as the end of the Newtonian dream. To my understanding, the interaction between the concepts of feedback and self-similarity disallow for a predictable outcome to occur for any given process driven by a nonlinear mathematical equations. As such, science diverged from the idea that we would be able to reliably predict the result of chemical, physical and biological equations with nothing random in them, becuase we would never be able to know the starting point accurately enough.
But why? Why wouldn't we be able to know that starting point?
Letz assume for a second that we would know everything about the start of the universe: The exact location speed and direction of every single particle at that stage... wouldn't that mean that we would be able to predict the future of everything that will ever happen in the universe? Wouldn't that enable us to predict where and when feedback and self-similarity and even evolutionary processes would occur at any given time (assuming that we had a super-computer to process all that data). Doesn't the universe pehave as a giant simpulation with predictable outcomes (at least in principle)?
What would throw Newton's dream into disarray? Or is chaos just a science's way of approaching the vast complexity occurring in our universe with a less ambitious/ realistic approach?
I would love to get your feedback on this (however, please bear in mind that I am not an expert).
Please allow me tro preface the following by stating that I am a novice to the concept of chaos theory. Although I do understand the general concept behind Turing, Bellousov, Laurenz and Madelbrot's concepts, I am not entirely familiar with the mathematical basis of their scientific discoveries.
However, reading about the implications of the Chaos Theory I feel I am missing one important point and I hoped you would be able to shed some light on my question.
The Chaos Theory was heralded as the end of the Newtonian dream. To my understanding, the interaction between the concepts of feedback and self-similarity disallow for a predictable outcome to occur for any given process driven by a nonlinear mathematical equations. As such, science diverged from the idea that we would be able to reliably predict the result of chemical, physical and biological equations with nothing random in them, becuase we would never be able to know the starting point accurately enough.
But why? Why wouldn't we be able to know that starting point?
Letz assume for a second that we would know everything about the start of the universe: The exact location speed and direction of every single particle at that stage... wouldn't that mean that we would be able to predict the future of everything that will ever happen in the universe? Wouldn't that enable us to predict where and when feedback and self-similarity and even evolutionary processes would occur at any given time (assuming that we had a super-computer to process all that data). Doesn't the universe pehave as a giant simpulation with predictable outcomes (at least in principle)?
What would throw Newton's dream into disarray? Or is chaos just a science's way of approaching the vast complexity occurring in our universe with a less ambitious/ realistic approach?
I would love to get your feedback on this (however, please bear in mind that I am not an expert).