Jim Choate wrote:
>
> http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chaos.html
Er, yes, it is a great site. It even has a definition of mathematical
chaos:
"A dynamical system is chaotic if it
1. Has a dense collection of points with periodic orbits,
2. Is sensitive to the initial condition of the system (so that
initially nearby points can evolve quickly into very
different states), and
3. Is topologically transitive.
Chaotic systems exhibit irregular, unpredictable behavior (the butterfly
effect). The boundary between linear and chaotic behavior is often
characterized by period doubling, followed by quadrupling, etc.,
although other routes to chaos are also
possible"
And this implies that "chaotic" means the same as "stochastic"????
One of the reasons I don't like the word "chaotic" is that it misleads
people into thinking it is the same as random, or as stochastic.
