Chaos: Making A New Science: James Gleick 1987

 Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick | Goodreads

An Impression

This was a book that's been sitting on my shelf for a number of years. Like 20 years. I had heard of Chaos Theory and it sounded pretty cool. This was the second book I bought. The first was a little more fleshed out in the math, nothing too complicated but enough to follow the logic. This book wasn't that. It's a history of the creation of the field of Chaos Theory. Little older, little wiser let's read the history.

 

The first portion of the book I found a little boring, it was reviewing stuff I already knew but the narrative pulled me in. Msgr. Gleick has done a good job of explaining how profound and universal this new science is. It’s a history though. It focuses on the people who developed these ideas and how it spread through all the sciences. It also describes the trials and tribulations they had in convincing the science community of the validity and importance of their work.

 

I think I need to expand on the concept of Chaos Theory but I'm having a tough time putting it into words. Explaining how turbulence happens. A river flows by, smooth and linear, then place a rock in the current. The larger the rock, the more the linear flow is disrupted and creates the "rapids" on the downstream side of the rock. What is the nature of that turbulence? How does turbulence form? What conditions exist at the point when linear flow changes to turbulent flow? Is there a pattern? Existing physics and mathematics say no. Then a group of wild cards start thinking that if you look at it differently there's order in the chaos. This was not considered an assault on the existing scholastic institutions, but it was resisted as all new ideals need to be.

 

Let me take a stab at it. Chaos Theory is the science of the behavior of complex, dynamic systems that respond to small changes to the input variables with large and unpredictable changes to the output data. The dynamic portion of these systems is the output data then feeds back to the input and further changes the output. Sound system feedback is an example of this chaotic output. Weather systems in general, how do they work?

 

I'm having a tough time getting past that. It's a complex subject and this book didn't go into the math part. It's about the people who did the math. Very interesting story. Well written. Still don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to the math.

 

I have been a fan of sci-fi for most of my life and have read a lot of it over the years. I'm not that guy that consumed all the classics; Asimov, PDK, Clark, etc., but I have gone through enough. I have noticed the maturing of the genre over the years and I find in rereading them that they feel a bit dated. I do carry some of those first impressions forward one of them being the concept of psychohistory introduced in Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. I really connected with the ideal of a society of large enough size could be influenced and steered on a projected course to a predicted end. Ridiculous of course, but so seductive. We have demonstrations what big data can do. Is it a reach from predicting buying habits to predicting the future psychohistory style. Are we there yet?

 

In telling the story of chaos, Msgr. Gleick describes the institutional position as a linear function. Noise was to be dismissed. Chaos looked at the noise and said there is information there. It is part of the function that is being resolved.

 

Again, I'm having trouble putting it together. Need to find another book on the subject. I gave that other book away. That was dumb.

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