Random Changes in History

By Rosemarie Emanuele. The study of Chaos Theory, a fascinating sub-field of math, was born out of the recognition that small changes can have large effects. It is often illustrated by the story of a butterfly flapping its wings thus leading to a tornado thousands of miles away. Indeed, this entire line of study was the result of a realization that rounding numbers earlier than expected can lead to results from a computer program that greatly diverge from those with no rounding. I found myself thinking of this recently as my course in Higher Geometries studied fractals (derived from equations that account for chaos.) On almost the same day, a colleague told me about her newest project. Read more...