Lorenzo Monarch and Tiger Moth discuss theories
Lorenzo: You’ve heard of the
butterfly effect?
Tiger Moth: You’re telling
me that Monarchs rule the world? That one flap of your wings here in Mexico and
you set off a maelstrom in Mauritius?
Lorenzo: Chain of events
sets off a crisis far away. Chaos theory.
Tiger Moth: And you’ll be
aware of catastrophe theory?
Lorenzo: A steady state that
suddenly experiences change? It’s a branch of chaos theory.
Tiger Moth: Have you thought
about how these apply to us? Today we choose to sip nectar from this bush, the
bird misses us and we live. Tomorrow, we sip nectar from the next bush, the
bird sees us and we’re dead. Catastrophe.
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Voice-over
Lorenzo Monarch is good at
giving definitions. An abstract ability. Tiger Moth excels at giving examples. And
makes it personal. But can either of them solve non-linear equations?
2 comments:
How do you measure “chaos”? In my maths class I learned about the Lyapunov exponent, a quantity that expresses the rate of separation of very close trajectories. But it seems difficult to link a butterfly trying to survive in its life to complex algebra.
I saw Hunger Games recently – a story of survival. Could a butterfly communicate with a bird, to make peace in the jungle?
Measuring chaos? Well, you can measure the force of such events as typhoons (1 to 10). Perhaps some measure of intensity of chaos is also possible, although this would be applying a linear measure to a non-linear event!
Lyapunov? That must have been an ADVANCED Maths class! Impressive!
Algebra and butterflies? There's an algebraic butterfly curve expressed as x^6 + y^6 = x^2. Pretty!
Could a butterfly enter peace negotiations with birds, ask them to stop being predators? I suspect such negotiations, being against instinctive behavior, might take a l o n g t i m e! ;-)
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