Sunday, April 20, 2008

Imaginary [numbers], never disagree

Edward Lorenz has shuffled off this mortal coil.
Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory, dead at 90
For the vox populi I'll just mention he's responsible for the phrase 'butterfly effect.'

What it was really about was 'Sensitive dependence on initial conditions' and the inherent non-linearity of natural systems.

Professor Lorenz lived about as long and as best any human can expect, but still I mourn his passing. I think it's because learning about chaos theory and fractals taught me to have faith again.

I still don't believe in religions, or go to any church, or believe in an anthropomorphic god, but I have faith.

My faith comes from the knowledge that entropy doesn't rule. I agreed with Einstein, "God does not play dice with the universe", but I was as uncertain as Heisenberg.

Then chaos theory and fractals taught me that Joseph Ford was right "God plays dice with the universe, But they're loaded dice."

Rest in peace Professor Lorenz.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

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