Chaotic1

Read about Edward Lorenz's work. He dealt with the weather, he was a meteorologist. He had modelled (rather over-simplified), the weather system as a set of simple differential equations. He had set out to achieve complete predictability, if not for the real weather, at least for the computer model. But surprisingly, he found that the computer model itself was unpredictable. He found Sensitivity to Initial Conditions (SICness). A situation, where even the best of computers cannot really predict the long-term behavior. Yes, by building powerful computers and algorithms, by considering more and more factors, and by doing more and more accurate calculations, we may be able to improve weather prediction from hours to days to probably weeks. But the system as such, in real long term, is unpredictable. I hope I do not sound out of context. Hmm... Maybe I do. I'll stop here.

And hey, also check http://cybersuneel.tripod.com/music.htm Some fractal music!

close-up of a leaf?

Folks, just hit up http://cybersuneel.tripod.com/fractwall.htm on the search engine. Fractal images look neat. One of them: Looks like..? Cross-section of the skin? Dermis, epidermis?.. I am no dermatologist.

I'll try to be brief. Butterfly effect does *not* imply that a butterfly flapping its wings *will* cause/change-the-course-of a tornado. It only says that the system is sensitive to initial conditions and the sensitivity is such that even *really* small changes such as the flapping of a butterfly's wings will *affect* a tornado. Traditionally, one tends to beleive that the effect of a single butterfly is *negligible* and we are taught that such insignificant things as butterflies can be neglected. However, the discovery during Lorenz's time was that such Minor things cannot always be neglected because nonlinear systems are extremely sensitive to initial conditions. This fact can be fairly readily understood. The "Butterfly" is only a very crude metaphor for uncertainity of initial conditions. Since in real world, initial conditions are uncertain, and since systems (such as weather, stock market etc) are nonlinear, the outcome is bound to be impossible to predict with certainity. I do not see a reason why this should be difficult to digest. And I do not understand the eagerness to debunk the Butterfly effect. Please correct me if I am wrong anywhere...

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