Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

WHAT IF?
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CHAOS
THEORY
Chaos theory is an area of mathematics
that studies how small differences in initial
conditions within comples dynamic systems
can result in widely different outcomes.
Chaos theory has been applied to systems
in a ranges of fields, including meteorology,
biology and physics. Although such systems
are deterministic, with no random elements,
the apparently chaotic way that they behave
makes prediction very difficult.
An early pioneer of chaos theory was the
American mathematician and meteorologist
Edward Lorenz. In 1961 Lorenz was using
a computer model to predict the weather.
He started inputting data relating to such
interdependent variables as temperature,
humidity, air pressure and the strength and
direction of the wind. The first time he ran
the programme, he typed in a figure of
.506127 for one of the variables. Then,
when he ran the programme again, he took
a short cut, typing in the rounded down
figure of .506. The weather scenario that
resulted the second time was completely
different from the first. The tiny disparity of
.000127 had had a huge effect.
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MAY DAY 2016