Aarhus Universitets segl

Studenterkollokvium - Kristian Fugleberg Lytje: Basics of Chaos Theory

Oplysninger om arrangementet

Tidspunkt

Fredag 1. maj 2020,  kl. 10:15 - 11:00

Sted

Zoom (191-286-778)

The Lorenz attractor, generated by a simplified version of the equations that sparked the discovery of modern chaos theory.
The Lorenz attractor, generated by a simplified version of the equations that sparked the discovery of modern chaos theory.

Supervisor: Dmitri Fedorov

 

Why can meteorologists only predict the weather a week ahead? Why can we not model the exact evolution of the solar system? These questions have puzzled scientists since the 19th century, and an entirely new mathematical field, chaos theory, has been discovered to help answering them. In this colloquium, we’ll take a closer look at the concept of chaos, and why it appears. 

Many are probably familiar with the butterfly effect, which is the idea that small actions can have a great impact on a complex system. This is often imagined as a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon. While somewhat exaggerated, this is indeed one of the ingredients for generating deterministic chaos. The other ingredients are unsolvable equations and, surprisingly, fractals. In this presentation, we’ll try to explore the links between these concepts, and how they relate to chaos theory.