Article ID: CBB613399041

Chaos: From celestial mechanics to climate (2024)

unapi

Abstract Chaos is unpredictable behaviour arising in systems governed by deterministic laws. Since its ‘discovery’ in the 1960s by Edward Lorenz in his studies of meteorological systems, chaos has become an important way of understanding seemingly random behaviour in many other areas. These include the double pendulum, the climate, El Niño and electrical oscillators. Understanding chaos allows the limits of the predictability of a system to be determined. However, despite this recent activity this paper will show that the theory of chaos has a rich history and chaotic behaviour was originally identified in the 1890s by Henri Poincaré in his investigations of the three-body problem in celestial mechanics. But remarkably this paper will also show that chaotic behaviour can be found in such a simple problem as multiplication by 10 and it is closely linked to the question (studied by the ancient Greeks) of whether a number is rational or irrational.

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Authors & Contributors
Aubin, David
Barrow-Green, June
Dahan Dalmedico, Amy
Andersson, K. G.
Arata, Luis O.
De Asúa, Miguel J. C.
Journals
Archive for History of Exact Sciences
Revue d'Histoire des Mathématiques
Asclepio: Archivo Iberoamericano de Historia de la Medicina
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society
Historia Mathematica
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Publishers
American Institute of Physics
American Mathematical Society
University of New Hampshire
Concepts
Celestial mechanics
Chaos theory; chaotic behavior
Mathematics
El Niño Current
Mathematical physics
Differential equations
People
Poincaré, Jules Henri
Lorenz, Edward
Hamilton, William Rowan
Hill, George William
Jacobi, Carl Gustav J.
Lagrange, Joseph Louis
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
20th century
21st century
Places
Australia
United States
France
New Zealand
Institutions
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT
Princeton University
University of California, Santa Cruz
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