On 24/09/2019 5:10 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote: > Numbers limit how accurately digital computers model chaos > Gee, do these people not know how to research their subject.
Michael V Berry wrote about this subject in 1978 and was quoted by Nassim Taleb in the Black Swan. "On a billiard table, if you know a set of basic parameters concerning the ball at rest, can compute the resistance of the table (quite elementary), and can gauge the strength of the impact, then it is rather easy to predict what would happen at the first hit. The second impact becomes more complicated, but possible; and more precision is called for. The problem is that to correctly compute the ninth impact, you need to take account the gravitational pull of someone standing next to the table (modestly, Berry's computations use a weight of less than 150 pounds). And to compute the fifty-sixth impact, every single elementary particle in the universe needs to be present in your assumptions! An electron at the edge of the universe, separated from us by 10 billion light-years, must figure in the calculations, since it exerts a meaningful effect on the outcome. (p. 178)" The cause is non-linearity not chaos. Chaos is the result. The problem is not just the accuracy of the numbers used to represent real values, but any source of error, perturbation or simplification. -- Regards brd Bernard Robertson-Dunn Canberra Australia email: [email protected] _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
