Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Acta Mathematica (QUANTUM CHAOS)!

Three Laws of Discovery

Law One:
(Implied by statements ...disputing priority, usually in response to what is seen as the neglect of certain Russian mathematicians. Of course, this Law is self-referential.), i.e.

"Discoveries are rarely attributed to the correct person."

Law Two: (Prompted by the observation that the sequence of antecedents under 'Law One' [above] seems quite endless.), i.e.

"Nothing is ever discovered for the first time."

Law Three: (aka: Whitehead’s Law) Quoted by
Max Dresden, Dutch physicist, historian and sociologist of science, teacher and lecturer [1918-1997] at the beginning of his biography of Hendrik "Hans" Anton Kramers, Dutch theoretical physicist [1894-1952], i.e.

"Everything of importance has been said before (by someone who did not discover it)."

Chaos Theory


"Chaos Theory" comes from the fact that -- the systems that the theory describes are apparently disordered, but chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in apparently random data.


[ Rigorous formulas hamper understanding! Let the chaos never end, nor begin? -Ed. ]

Determinism

"Determinism" is the philosophical belief that every event or action is the inevitable result of preceding events and actions. Thus, in principle at least, every event or action can be completely predicted in advance, or in retrospect. One of the important innovations that created modern science around the year 1500 A.D. was the idea that the laws of the material universe could be understood meaningfully only by expressing physical properties as quantified measurements, that is, in numerical terms and not just in words. Having understood what is meant by determinism, initial conditions, and uncertainty of measurements, you can now learn about dynamical instability, which to most physicists is the same in meaning as chaos. In a chaotic system, using the laws of physics to make precise long-term predictions is impossible, even in theory. Making long-term predictions to any degree of precision at all would require giving the initial conditions to infinite precision.

Law Four: (Did I announce just three? AKA, Robert's Law --
Enigmatic discovery is always indeterminant.) i.e.

"If you accept Chaos, one cannot be entirely sure that Chaos will accept you."

Me Thinks (giggle).