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Bezig met laden... De wetten van toeval en chaos : kleine oorzaken en grote gevolgen in de moderne natuurwetenschappen (1991)door David Ruelle
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How do scientists look at chance, or randomness, and chaos in physical systems? In answering this question for a general audience, Ruelle writes in the best French tradition: he has produced an authoritative and elegant book--a model of clarity, succinctness, and a humor bordering at times on the sardonic. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)519.2Natural sciences and mathematics Mathematics Applied Mathematics, Probabilities ProbabilitiesLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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A great story about Godel. Somebody had briefly occupied his office while he was away and had left a polite note saying "I hope to have the chance to get to know you more intimately on a later occasion"....he received a response from Godel which consisted of the note with that sentence underlined bye Godel and, added, in pencil, the question "Exactly what do you mean?" Ruelle describes him as "a small man yellowish, and emaciated and he wore cotton plugs in his ears". Another story about the French mathematician Jean Leray who told Ruelle that his inspiration for his great 1934 paper on hydrodynamics was watching the vortices of the River Seine as it flows past the piles of the Pont Neuf in Paris. And I've often pondered over the idea that all the molecules in a box....if you wait long enough will randomly arrange themselves all into one corner. Ruelle, does much the same with a layer of hot water poured over a layer of cold....they begin to mix into luke warm water but in principle could return to the two layers of hot and cold. How long would we have to wait....Ruelle just says too long ...and that seems to be much longer than the current age of the universe.
I like the reconciliation between chance and determinism cited by Poincare: "A very small cause, which escapes us, determines a considerable effect which we cannot ignore, and we then say that this effect is due to chance". (Though there was no quantum uncertainty in Poincare's day). And Ruelle has some harsh advice for Economists: "Legislators and government officials are thus faced with the possibility that their decisions, intended to produce a better equilibrium, will, in fact, lead to wild fluctuations, with possibly quite disastrous effects". (I think our Reserve Bank and the Federal Reserve should take notice...and I recall a friend of mine, then working in the Treasury Department in about 1990 saying that there were room-fulls of economists there who had run out of ideas about what action could be taken to fix the high inflation and high unemployment ).
As I said at the start....a curious book. But interesting and as I've been re-reading it to write this review, I've come to appreciate it more...even if it is difficult to summarise. I give it 5 stars. ( )