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I'm not sure any of you can help me on this because I don't know everyone's areas of expertise.
Can any of you explain 'strange attractor' to me in lay terms so that I don't have to have degrees in math, physics, and topology to understand it? I've Googled, but everything sort of gets bogged down in math.
Yes, I know chaos theory is all about the math. But...surely there's a way to explain it to a person who doesn't have all the degrees?
For instance, here's the 'summary' from the wiki page for what an 'attractor' is:
Anybody want to give it a try? :)
This is for my NaNoWriMo novel, which is a time travel story. I want to explain part of why the hero character is so important using the concept of strange attractors, and I think I understand them just barely enough for me to sort of know that that's the terminology I want, but not enough to write it so that a reader could follow it. Does that help?
Can any of you explain 'strange attractor' to me in lay terms so that I don't have to have degrees in math, physics, and topology to understand it? I've Googled, but everything sort of gets bogged down in math.
Yes, I know chaos theory is all about the math. But...surely there's a way to explain it to a person who doesn't have all the degrees?
For instance, here's the 'summary' from the wiki page for what an 'attractor' is:
An attractor is a set towards which a dynamical system evolves over time. That is, points that get close enough to the attractor remain close even if slightly disturbed. Geometrically, an attractor can be a point, a curve, a manifold, or even a complicated set with a fractal structure known as a strange attractor. Describing the attractors of chaotic dynamical systems has been one of the achievements of chaos theory.Ummm...yeah. I find that I feel a bit like Charlie Brown in this bit from A Boy Named Charlie Brown:
A trajectory of the dynamical system in the attractor does not have to satisfy any special constraints except for remaining on the attractor. The trajectory may be periodic or chaotic or of any other type.
Lucy Van Pelt: Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud's formations. What do you think you see, Linus?So...I need duckie and horsie.
Linus Van Pelt: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean. [points up] That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there... [points] ...gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.
Lucy Van Pelt: Uh huh. That's very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: Well... I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.
Anybody want to give it a try? :)
This is for my NaNoWriMo novel, which is a time travel story. I want to explain part of why the hero character is so important using the concept of strange attractors, and I think I understand them just barely enough for me to sort of know that that's the terminology I want, but not enough to write it so that a reader could follow it. Does that help?
