[sdiy] What is chaos?

[Paul Perry]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Tillman"
> There are lots of simple mechanical systems that show serious chaotic
> behavior with no feedback at all.  Like a chaotic pendulum, the
> movement of multiple bodies with gravitational/magnetic/electrostatic
> forces between them, fluid turbulence, navigating on the surface of a
> sphere, anything that wraps over multiple cycles.
>
http://www.myphysicslab.com/pendulum2.html
has the equation for the chaotic pendulum.
Whether or not the electronic realisation of this contains feedback
is left as an exercise for a better student than I. ;D

paul perry Melbourne Australia

Incidentally, I remember reading in one of the popular histories
of chaos theory, that a Comdyna analog computer was used to
create a chaortic model.

Worth a glance:
http://www.viewsfromscience.com/documents/webpages/chaos.html