SCIENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHAOS THEORY

Cardiometry, 2014

At the turn of the millennium it became apparent that science is fully losing its foundations-objective reality and the consequent determinism. The illusion of objectivity has already been eliminated by quantum science, showing how human consciousness plays a significant role in the quantum realm of subatomic matter. Scientists Descartes and Newton founded the science on assumption that the consciousness has no effect on reality. The consciousness itself was shown isolated, even from the domain of religion. It was believed that everything in nature could be explained by mechanistic terms, the universe itself was assumed to be a huge mechanical clock. Causal determinism, already damaged by quantum science with the uncertainty principle in quantum space was finally destroyed by the theory of chaos [1].

Classical positivist model, which truly and largely permitted the advance of modern scientific knowledge, is somehow outdated. This deterministic-like paradigm which run during the 18 th and 19 th centuries, not only based on the work of Newton but also of other distinguished scientist such as Leibniz, Euler or Lagrange as well as on the philosophical inquiries by Descartes or Comte, strongly supports what has been named as paradigm of order . It is founded on four main principles, as follows: order, reductionism, predictability and determinism. By order, one may understand that, the given causes will lead to the same known effects. Reductionism implies that the behaviour of the system can be explained by the sum of the behaviours of the parts. On the other hand, this kind of system is predictable in the sense that, once its global behaviour is defined, events in the future can be determined by introducing the correct inputs into the model. Finally, determinism implies that the process flows along orderly and predictable paths that have clear beginnings and rational ends. This way of understanding behaviour of natural (and social systems) could be summarized with the following quote of Laplace (1951):

This book describes the birth of the new theory of Chaos. This is a difficult new concept that is still evolving but it popularized the term: Butterfly Effect and introduced new concepts to a popular audience, such as fractals and introduced pioneering thinkers, such as Feigenbaum and Mandelbrot; it inspired the novel and movie Jurassic Park. This concept opens up a new view of nature: where previously randomness had to be forced in to explain the unpredictable variations, now chaos is seen as spanning both order (patterns) and disorder. Now, this phenomenon helps explain the shape of clouds, smoke, water eddies, mountain ranges and coastlines. Implicitly, it shows how Newtonian mathematics has constrained physics (and science in general) to make simplifying assumptions that enable the calculus to become the universal tool-set of the scientific viewpoint. The book describes how this tough problem was cracked by five theoreticians described herein with a novelist's eye. Key to the solution was the early use of computers to repeat simple calculations, very many times. The viewpoint changed from static 'state' to dynamic process: becoming rather than being. Chaos is everywhere, it is switching the simple mathematical models of classical physics. It is the science of the global nature of systems. I show here (but not in the book or Wiki) that this is the start of the Death of Newtonian Physics and the Calculus: a TRUE REVOLUTION.

Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie, 1996

2001

Explaining Chaos is an informative, original and enjoyable introduction to chaos theory and its associated philosophical problems. The book does not presuppose any previous background in chaos theory. Nevertheless, the discussion may be as interesting to experienced readers as it is to novices. In particular, several mathematical interludes deepen the discussion of technical issues and provide numerous interesting insights that could further enlighten readers already familiar with the central ideas. The reader will ®nd an accessible discussion striking a good balance between scienti®c and philosophical topics. Unfortunately, the physical and the philosophical parts are uneven in quality. While the treatment of the scienti®c issues is thorough and skilful, the philosophical discussions have signi®cant lacunas. Nevertheless, Smith's enthusiasm for exploring these issues is contagious and the book is a valuable contribution to a ®eld that has, despite its importance, received little attention from philosophers so far. Explaining Chaos consists of ten chapters that could be divided into two main categories: the mathematics and physics of chaos, and the implications of chaos for scienti®c practice and methodology. In Chapters 1 (dynamical systems), 2 (fractals), 6 (universality), 8 (experimental evidence for chaos), and 9 (randomness), Smith introduces the central topics of chaos theory and discusses important results. In Chapter 10, he addresses the question of how chaos could adequately be de®ned. On the whole, these chapters provide a very knowledgeable and skilful presentation of the basics of chaos theory. In Chapters 3 (models and simplicity), 4 (prediction), 5 (approximate truth), and 7 (explanation), Smith considers the methodological implications of chaos theory. Here, he aims at showing that chaos, though an interesting and exciting ®eld of investigation, by no means requires a revision of the basic traits of scienti®c methodology. Smith successfully resists the temptation to be carried away by fancy bold claims and, on the contrary, argues that chaos theory may be considered a respectable tool for decent scienti®c research.

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60, 195-220, 2009

From the beginning of chaos research until today, the unpredictability of chaos has been a central theme. It is widely believed and claimed by philosophers, mathematicians and physicists alike that chaos has a new implication for unpredictability, meaning that chaotic systems are unpredictable in a way that other deterministic systems are not. Hence, one might expect that the question ‘What are the new implications of chaos for unpredictability?’ has already been answered in a satisfactory way. However, this is not the case. I will critically evaluate the existing answers and argue that they do not fit the bill. Then I will approach this question by showing that chaos can be defined via mixing, which has never before been explicitly argued for. Based on this insight, I will propose that the sought-after new implication of chaos for unpredictability is the following: for predicting any event, all sufficiently past events are approximately probabilistically irrelevant.

Physics versus math, 2021

Physics is chaotic due to missunderstandings about the wave model. The wrong idea of wave front tilting introduced in 1882 caused the idea of time dilation and erratic Lorentz transform. Observations on matter in the form of electrons from a photodetector indicates that Planck's constant is an electron property instead of a quanta of light. The wave model can explain all light phenomena.

Foundations of science, 2002

Nonclarity around the understanding of the concept of chaos has caused some confusion in the contemporary natural science. For instance, not making a clear distinction between the deterministic and quantum chaos has made it impossible to evaluate the approach of Ilya Prigogine in an appropriate way. It is shown that Jean Bricmont has missed the target in his critique of I. Prigogine's ideas, as the latter has concentrated his interest on systems consisting of infinite (arbitrarily large) number of particles in incessant mutual impact, the former on systems that have a finite (not necessarily large, although sometimes very large) number of particles, which move freely of any mutual impact or participate only in transient interaction. The difference may sometimes be quite crucial. It is also suggested that if we consider the irreversibility as the basic element of description of physical world, the world of trajectories and wave functions cannot be researched apart from this real irreversibility.

IntechOpen eBooks, 2024