Chaos theory for lay people?

[Sojourner]

At 10:58 AM 7/30/97 -0500, 4worlds at upanet.cc.uleth.ca wrote:

>John M on 28 July 1997 14:43:19 wrote:
><I don't know what the fuck is going on on the list.>

>To whit, ever thought of sending in your definition of 'chaos theory for lay
>people'to Webster's? Houghton Mifflin? Merriam-Webster? Sojourner at vt.edu?
>

How can I resist? *grin*

>From the University of Maryland:

The idea that many simple nonlinear deterministic systems can behave in an
apparently
unpredictable and chaotic manner was first noticed by the great French
mathematician Henri
Poincaré. Other early pioneering work in the field of chaotic dynamics were
found in the
mathematical literature by such luminaries as Birkhoff, Cartwright,
Littlewood, Levinson,
Smale, and Kolmogorov and his students, among others. In spite of this, the
importance of
chaos was not fully appreciated until the widespread availability of
digital computers for
numerical simulations and the demonstration of chaos in various physical
systems. This
realization has broad implications for many fields of science, and it is
only within the past
decade or so that the field has undergone explosive growth. It is found
that the ideas of chaos
have been very fruitful in such diverse disciplines as biology, economics,
chemistry,
engineering, fluid mechanics, physics, just to name a few. 

reference this:

Cha"os (?), n. [L. chaos chaos (in senses 1 & 2), Gr. , fr. (root ) to
yawn, to gape, to open widely. Cf. Chasm.] 

1. An empty, immeasurable space; a yawning chasm. [Archaic] 

     Between us and there is fixed a great chaos. Luke xvi. 26 (Rhemish
Trans. ).

2. The confused, unorganized condition or mass of matter before the
creation of distinct and order forms. 

3. Any confused or disordered collection or state of things; a confused
mixture; confusion; disorder. 


Henri Poincare was also a philosopher of the highest order, and I believe
that a combination
of his philosophy, chaos theory "mathematics" (aka its understandings as
expressed through
mathematics) and religion ought to be a good starting point.  I'd love to
expand more on this
but I am forced to work too hard today so I must say, hold, and be patient,
and I'll add
a few Lay Person's words.

I promise!

*grin*

	"Tyrone looked about him, up, down, side, left, in every
	 conceivable angle he could think of.  He tried looking 'beyond'
	 and 'within' his own consciousness.  He looked in books,
	 libraries, every conceivable storehouse of information available
	 to him... and yet, he still could not see the machine.  The great
	 machine, with its immense gears which had ground him, and his
	 father, and his father's father into the fine sift of a lubricating fluid --
	 it had crushed the stone of his spirit into an oil which allowed
	 the spinning crushing gears to go on and on and on..."

		--The Lost Chapter, Paragraph 10, lines 3-9