Edward Lorenz

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of mathematics and a World War II meteorologist, Lorenz set to work on using computers to help predict the weather. It was 1961, and getting the models to work was harder than he thought: tiny changes in parameters led to huge differences in results. He called it "deterministic chaos", which evolved into a new field that is now better known as Chaos Theory, exemplified by a concept Lorenz used to illustrate the concept: the "butterfly effect" (taken from the title of his 1972 presentation, "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" The bottom line: perfect weather prediction was impossible even if a perfect computer model could be developed, since it was impossible to get perfect measurements of everything that was happening in nature: a tiny change (say, "wind" from a butterfly's wings) could grow into a huge disturbance elsewhere (say, a hurricane). Lorenz's ideas "profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind's view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton," said the prize committee when he was awarded the 1991 Kyoto Prize for basic sciences. He died April 15 from cancer. He was 90.956164383562. From This is True for 13 April 2008 Suggestions for further reading: Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emoti... by Anthony Robbins Amazon Price: $11.53 Customer Review: This book, along with the entire body of Mr. Robbins products and services, is little more than grandiose promises of self actualization which will completely fail the individual who buys into them. Tony robbins is no different from the Church of Sc...   Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos: With Applications To Physics, Biology, Chemistr... by Steven H. Strogatz Amazon Price: $46.74 Customer Review: This is an excellent book , I bought this book for a course at Boston University titled "non linear dynamics and chaos". Up to chapter 5 is ordinary differential equations, nothing more nothing less. It does teach you a lot of basics in diff e...   Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick Amazon Price: $10.08 Customer Review: This book is the first of its kind, which introduces a new branch of science, the chaos or chaos theory from the historical point of view. This theory is widely applied in the transdisciplinary field of meteorology, mathematics, physics, population b...   Simply Complexity: A Clear Guide to Complexity Theory by Neil Johnson Amazon Price: $10.85 Customer Review: There is a proposition in this book that is really important for the evolution of the mathematical economy: "The system as a whole manages to self-organize itself in such a way that the fluctuations are smaller than for the case where everyone tosses...   Mathematics: A Discrete Introduction by Edward A. Scheinerman Amazon Price: $159.44 Customer Review: The material is actually put forth in a pretty easy to understand way, but the problem is that the material is very difficult - and the back of the book provides absolutely zero answers. This resulted in me, more than once, thinking that I had an ide...   Newsfeed display by CaRP

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