Quotes About Chaos

In a chaotic system, the required precision in the initial measurement grows exponentially, not linearly.

Lyapunov time sets a horizon beyond which acceptable prediction becomes impossible. For a chaotic electrical circuit, the horizon is something like a thousandth of a second; for the weather, it's unknown but seems to be a few days; and for the solar system itself, five million years.

Pecora started the transmitter and receiver in different states, and then asked the computer to predict their behavior far into the future. As the numbers poured out, they bobbled erratically—the aperiodicity expected of chaos—but amazingly, their values converged toward each other. They were synchronizing. By driving the receiver with a chaotic signal transmitted from a duplicate of itself, Pecora had coaxed them to fluctuate in lockstep.

determinism does not imply predictability.

At such small scales, space and time might seethe and roil at random. They might fluctuate like bubbling foam.

that raises a profound mystery: Scientists have long been baffled by the existence of spontaneous order in the universe. The laws of thermodynamics seem to dictate the opposite, that nature should inexorably degenerate toward a state of greater disorder, greater entropy. Yet all around us we see magnificent structures—galaxies, cells, ecosystems, human beings—that have somehow managed to assemble themselves.

In colloquial usage, chaos means a state of total disorder. In its technical sense, however, chaos refers to a state that only appears random, but is actually generated by nonrandom laws. As such, it occupies an unfamiliar middle ground between order and disorder. It looks erratic superficially, yet it contains cryptic patterns and is governed by rigid rules. It's predictable in the short run but unpredictable in the long run. And it never repeats itself: Its behavior is nonperiodic.

things that seem hopelessly random and unpredictable when viewed in isolation often turn out to be lawful and predictable when viewed in aggregate.

Even if it could speak, its stories would have no unfolding of events, no beginnings or endings, just one senseless, single-syllable cacophony of middle.

We don't like feeling that events are out of control, so we put reality into an order that makes sense to us.

Can we reconcile the observed constructiveness of cosmic evolution with the inherent destructiveness of thermodynamics? Specifically how have the magnificent examples of order all around us arisen from chaos?

That mix of order and anarchy is what we now call emergent behavior.

and in addition to the feeling of being full there was another more terrifying one, as if a hundred appetites were raging out of control within her. She couldn't explain it, but she felt as if everything was in chaos and something awful was going to happen. She had eaten and now something terrible would occur.

When I have a kid, I wanna put him in one of those strollers for twins, then run around the mall looking frantic.

When i have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins, then run around the mall looking frantic.

Si les planètes savaient aimer, elles quitteraient leur orbite et ce serait le chaos. La permanence de l'univers est assurée parce que l'amour est impossible. Même l'homme qui aime pressent que l'amour est le frère de la mort. Mais cela ne l'empêche pas, lui qui est prisonnier de son orbite, de se frayer avec jubilation un chemin jusqu'à la cellule de son voisin en criant : je suis libre.

My hostess had an extensive family of brats, sticky-mouthed and staring, who were huddled around a delightfully huge fire.

Madness there, little other than I had expected, and grief and love, but mainly madness.

These lips had spoken words into the primal chaos of the world; they had sculpted sound into matter, darkness into light.

He saw, as pulsing sickly colors, the fear, greed, ignorance and seeping uncertainty that bred either hate or indifference. But there were nobility too,, and love and honor. They were mixed together in a chaotic maelstorm of feeling, of force.

The air was full of the angry scream of birds, the whir of their wings.

I'm afraid we have mislaid our esteemed leader.

I cannot lead an army, and fighting disgusts me, but destiny, or the forces of chaos, saw fit to equip me in other ways.

Little time, little time, little time, sang the rhythm of the pounding hooves.