Message-Id: <v01540b1fb16be57c16aa@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 12:01:59 -0800
To: pinhole@exploratorium.edu
From: pauld@exploratorium.edu (Paul Doherty)
Subject: Re: Chaos
Hi Geoff
There is a plastic toy chaotic pendulum that is great for demonstrating chaps.
We often sell them at the Exploratorium store.
(Not only the bearing but the relative lengths are inportant for chaos.
The key idea of chaotic systems is that any initial error (and quantum
mechanics assures us there will be an initial error.) grow exponentially.
That is there is a doubling time for the error. So two systems that start
nearly the same after soe reasoable time are dooing totally different
motions.
Paul Doherty