Poster: http://www.physics.uwo.ca/colloquia/Colloquia%20Notices/2012_2013/LEE%20Colloquium.pdf
Western University
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM
Date: Thursday, 18th October 2012
Time: 1:30 p.m.
Location: Physics & Astronomy Seminar Room 100
Dr. M. Howard Lee
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Georgia
“Defining chaos the physics way”
ABSTRACT
Much of what has been shown in numerical studies on chaos may be termed “symptoms” of chaos. There must be a cause or causes of chaos. A definition for chaos could emerge if these causes could be unearthed. Doing so—that is, finding definitions that follow from proofs—is the physics approach. It differs from the math approach of giving definitions that precede proofs. The field of chaos is a meeting place of two cultures.
In this talk I will discuss how one can arrive at a definition of chaos through a fixed-point spectrum of the logistic map—the Ising model of chaos. This spectrum is obtained by a process similar to taking the thermodynamic limit in statistical mechanics. Put simply, the spectrum looks like an unbroken string of irrational points. It can explain the symptoms of chaos that have been observed.
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