Sensitivity to Initial Conditions (Butterfly Effect) Demonstrated on a Lorenz Attractor

Sensitivity to initial conditions, known in pop-culture as the "Butterfly Effect", is one of the key features of chaos. Here we demonstrate this concept with the Lorenz attractor, drawing attention to interesting features, pointing out a fundamental mechanism for creating chaos, and discuss the differences between randomness and chaos.

This work is supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grant PHY-0754081.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Lorenz
• strange
• attractor
• chaos
• butterfly
• effect
• sensitivity
• to
• initial
• conditions
• drexel
• nsf
• randomness

[ChinoFavre]

What is very interesting is the last part: "Two points allowed to evolve on a strange attractor. As these two points evolve, they stay very close together for certain period of time. The closer they are initially, the longer that period of time will be." Would the same concept and theory be applied for humans and souls? i mean, the concept of destiny and soul mates maybe... :D

[tdj2828]

@ChinoFavre I never thought about it like that. Humans are complex systems, so there would be no direct analogy, but it is an interesting thought :)

[chemmylab123]

Whoever's narrarating sounds like Dmitri Martin. This is really interesting though.

[tdj2828]

@chemmylab123 Glad you found it interesting! Dmitri Martin is quite funny, though not the most elegant of public speakers :)

[VolcanicPenguin]

See this is why I'm not involved in politics. It's all inevitable anyway. Good vid!

[ChinoFavre]

Exactly.. MAYBE!.. that's the key!

[ChinoFavre]

Well, maybe you have no idea of what i'm talking about, but nevermind (you will someday :P), i'm just trying to get this to a new level.

[ChinoFavre]

But eventually they diverge dramatically... maybe when these two points crossover polarity (evolve), convergence isn't necessary anymore.