CHAOS THEORY: IS IT REALLY RELEVANT TO EREPUBLIK?

Day 849, 12:43 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Jazzaa
What exactly is chaos? The name "chaos theory" comes from the fact that the systems that the theory describes are apparently disordered, but chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in apparently random data.

When was chaos first discovered? The first true experimenter in chaos was a meteorologist, named Edward Lorenz. In 1960, he was working on the problem of weather prediction. He had a computer set up, with a set of twelve equations to model the weather. It didn't predict the weather itself. However this computer program did theoretically predict what the weather might be and this started off many peoples fascination (including my own) on this complicated theory




Chaos theory is an interesting idea and one which I have avidly read about and studied for a few years now. The term implies disorder or lack of rules or randomness. As we commonly think of chaos, we might think of the behavior of a mob after a huge football win or loss. But this would not be true.

The way I came about the term, was whilst watching the weird scientist in the movie “Jurassic Park” who was a chaos theorist. He spoke about the flapping of butterfly wings in Brazil and studying whether they would or could cause a tornado in Kansas, USA. While this may seem a little out there, the term “butterfly effect” is widely used. Chaos theory does look for underlying unifying patterns in systems.

Essentially, the theory looks at something called sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This means that even a very minute change in the initial conditions of a system can have dramatic effects on that system over time. Weather is a system that is studied widely so as to be better able to predict what conditions will be like.

This phenomenon has been observed in such diverse areas as fluid dynamics, the motion of planets, economic cycles, general relativity, and in broad psycho-social systems. However, it has only been since the middle of the 20th century that mathematical techniques have been developed to deal with them.

To put this in more simple terms, consider a football team. Each individual player has a certain set of quantifiable skills at their position, skills which can be given a score. Summing the scores of all persons on a team, then comparing one team with the scores from another team should give a clear sense of the difference and thus predict the winner of a game between them. This is the linear way of looking at a team, only as the sum of its parts.

However, there are many other sets of variables that come into play such as “team chemistry”, whether the game is played at home or away, experience playing with one another, the mood or attitude of an individual player or players, and on and on. These can and do lead to results that are different from those predicted by linear thinking.

We know from chaos theory that even very minute changes can produce widely different outcomes. Chaos theory also suggests that, if you can understand all of the variables affecting a system, the underlying pattern will eventually emerge and it will be easier to predict outcomes. This seems like a huge undertaking, even in football. But in physics…

Quantum chaos as a field of study grew out of quantum mechanics. At the time that many of the theories driving quantum mechanics were formulated, set aside were the facts that certain systems exhibited chaos (randomness) in their classical limits.

In other words, where Quantum mechanics would predict that a given system is a sum of its parts and thus should behave as X or Y, these results did not obtain. Some of these areas include level repulsion in the spectrum, ionization rates of atoms, enhanced stationary wave intensities in space, and so on. Using the mathematics developed as the result of chaos theory (fractals being an example), physicists are expanding their inquiry into chaotic systems.



Other areas utilizing chaos theory principles to extend and better understand the systems they deal with include psychology, sociology, biology, economics and so on. This most interesting concept has even been applied to the movement of traffic on roads.






So, Enough of the science, Some of you might be thinking what? I dont understand this? Dont worry... Its only the general concept you need to understand.



A more important question however is, Why am I telling you this?

Well, Could this theory be apparent in the everyday goings on of eRepublik. For example, could a PTO in the USA, really through minute changes cause a war in say Indonesia. I'll leave you to make your mind up on this but if the theory is appliable to all other aspects of life, it must therefore be the same for eRepublik.

Just something to think about 🙂 Feel free to comment, with your suggestions of where chaos theory could have taken place so far....

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Thanks,

Jazzaa