Original Message:
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From: Bruce Bostwick lihan161...@sbcglobal.net
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:30:53 -0600
To: brin-l@mccmedia.com
Subject: Re: Incoming!
Unless the fluid flow is completely laminar (which is extremely rare
in nature), there's turbulence involved, which is naturally chaotic.
Which is why I mentioned that that was a less informative answer than
it might appear. (i.e. it was a joke .. :)
OK, fair enoughbut quantum chaos comes about so quickly with virtually
anything (you weren't here but I did a thought experiment that showed that
h-bar introduces chaos in a billard ball though experiment in only 1-1.2
seconds). So, I guess I just don't think about that, because it's true of
everything and not useful.
OK, in what sense are you talking about fractals here. In
particular, why shouldn't standard wave theory work?
Dan M.
If it were wave action, also, I'd expect some reverse flow in the
cycle at least right after the front arrived. From the description,
it sounded more like the wind speed varied between zero and maximum in
one direction .. (to OP) right?
I model phenomenon for a living. Most of it is complex enough so that it
is impossible to sit down and calculate it from first principles. But, one
can do phenomenology.
When I was saying wave action, it was because that the first order fit to
what Nick described was A(1+sin(wt)). Clearly there is a constant as well
as sin term for the wind to go from zero to high to zero.
Since Doug was talking about hiking in the Sierra, I immediately thought of
many possible combinations that could results in this phenomenon (just
think of all the valleys and canyons and natural resonences). But, in the
absense of more data, I tend to think of the simplest phenomenology I can.
Plus, chaos and fractal are popular physics buzz words. Most of the time,
they have been misused. In particular, I don't understand how fractional
dimensions are particularly useful in a modeling a pehomenon in which the
information given matches A(1+sin(wt). I realize now that the reference to
chaos was a joke, but I still don't understand what brought non-integer
dimenisons to mind.
Dan M.
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