The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: How Chaos Theory Changed the Universe

Since the age of Descartes, science has put all of its eggs in the basket of determinism, the idea that with accurate enough measurements any aspect of the universe could be predicted. But the universe, it turns out, is not so tidy. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:29Josh Clark?

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• 1:37Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. Chuck here, and welcome to our sciency playlist. Super excited about this one. And I'm going to kick it off, everybody, with this episode on how chaos theory changed the universe.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.

• 1:59Josh Clark?

  Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry over there. So this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast about chaos theory.

• 2:12Josh Clark?

  Have you ever seen Event Horizon?

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Uh, I did. Not bad.

• 2:17Josh Clark?

  Great movie. Are you crazy?

• 2:18Speaker 02

  I didn't think it was great.

• 2:19Josh Clark?

  Oh, it's so imaginative.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  I thought it was okay.

• 2:22Josh Clark?

  It was a, like a Lovecraftian thing in outer space.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  Loved it.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  It was alright.

• 2:28Josh Clark?

  I Love-Crafted it.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:29Josh Clark?

  I liked it.

• 2:32Josh Clark?

  That's what I think of when I think of chaos. You know, there's that one part where they kind of give you like a glimpse behind like the dimension that this action is taking place in.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:42Josh Clark?

  To see the chaos underneath.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Oh, I should check that out again.

• 2:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I think you should.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  I think about Jurassic Park and Jeff Goldblum as The Creep.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Dr. Malcolm explaining chaos.

• 2:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  In the, uh, the little auto-driving, uh, SUV or whatever that was.

• 3:02Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:03Josh Clark?

  That's why it was called in the script, the auto-driving SUV scene.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you know what? I actually re-watched that scene and it confirmed two things. One is that he, uh, he actually did a pretty decent job for a Hollywood movie. A very rudimentary explanation of chaos.

• 3:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Oh, you watched it for this?

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:21Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, just that scene.

• 3:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  And then it also confirmed of what a creep that character was.

• 3:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  If you watch that scene, he's like, you know, he was all gross and flirty with her right in front of her ex.

• 3:33Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  But there's this, you know, he's talking to her. I didn't even notice this at first. He like, he just like touches her hair out of nowhere for no reason.

• 3:41Josh Clark?

  Oh, really?

• 3:41Speaker 02

  He's just talking to her and he just like grabs her hair and touches it.

• 3:44Josh Clark?

  Huh.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  And I'm like, what a creep.

• 3:45Josh Clark?

  I know. If you look closely, you can see the hormones emerging through his chest hair.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:50Josh Clark?

  It's grody.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  And I love Jeff Goldblum. It's not a reflection on him.

• 3:55Josh Clark?

  He was basically doing Jeff Goldblum.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Well, that's what he, yeah, sure.

• 3:58Josh Clark?

  He's Jeff Goldblum.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  But I don't think, that's how, in the manner in which he speaks, but I don't think he's a creep.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Do you? Wow.

• 4:06Josh Clark?

  I've got nothing against Jeff Goldblum. I think he's a, uh, I think he's doing Jeff Goldblum.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  It was also a sign of the times. Like if that movie were made today, Dr., uh, what was her name in the movie?

• 4:18Josh Clark?

  Ellie Sattler, I think?

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, Dr. Sattler would be like, "It's very inappropriate to stroke my hair, dude."

• 4:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Like, "Don't touch me."

• 4:26Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  But this was the 90s.

• 4:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was freewheeling.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Or was it 80s? No, it was 90s.

• 4:32Josh Clark?

  It was the, the early, mid 90s, I think.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:34Josh Clark?

  92, 93, 94. The book came out in 1990. And in the book, Ian Malcolm, who's a caatician.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, a creep caatician.

• 4:43Josh Clark?

  Right. He, um, he, he goes into even more depth about chaos theory. But that was, I mean, that was the first time I ever heard of chaos theory was from Jurassic Park.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too, probably.

• 4:54Josh Clark?

  And, um, it really, it was really misleading. I think the entire term chaos is very misleading as far as the general public goes. As from what I researched in this, this, for this article.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I mean, you hear the word chaos as an English speaker and you think frenetic and crazy.

• 5:15Josh Clark?

  Out of control.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's not what it means in terms of, of science like this.

• 5:20Josh Clark?

  Right. What it means, I guess we can say upfront is, is basically the idea that complex systems do not behave in very neat ways that we can easily grasp, understand, or measure.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Right. And not even, even simple systems don't sometimes.

• 5:39Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  It doesn't always have to be complex, but, um, I want to give a shout out in addition to our own article.

• 5:45Josh Clark?

  Oh.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  To, uh, when, you know, when it comes to stuff like this, the brain breaking stuff for me.

• 5:50Josh Clark?

  Man, this was a brain breaker.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Uh, you know how I always go to like, blank, blank for kids?

• 5:55Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Because it always helps.

• 5:57Josh Clark?

  If there's a dinosaur mascot on the page, it's a sure thing we can understand it.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Uh, but the, the best explanation for all this stuff that I found on the internet was from a website. Called Abarem, A-B-A-R-I-M Publications, which turns out to be a website about biblical patterns. And sandwiched in the middle there is a really great, easy to understand

• 6:23Speaker 02

  series of pages on chaos.

• 6:24Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  So I was like, man, I get it now. I mean, in a rudimentary way.

• 6:28Josh Clark?

  Right. Well, yeah, yeah. I think even a lot of people who deal with systems that display chaotic behavior, which I guess is to say basically all systems eventually, under the right conditions.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:43Josh Clark?

  Don't necessarily understand chaos.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they define a complex system as specifically, it doesn't mean just like, oh, it's complex. I mean, it is.

• 6:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  But specifically, they define it in a way that helped me understand. It's a system that has so much motion, so many elements that are in motion.

• 7:01Josh Clark?

  Moving parts.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that it takes like a computer to calculate all the possibilities.

• 7:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Of like what that could look like five minutes from now, 10 years from now.

• 7:11Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  So before computers came around, we, before the quantum mechanical revolution, it was it was a lot more basic. It was like, what comes up must come down. Stuff like that.

• 7:24Josh Clark?

  Let's talk about that, Chuckers, because when you're talking about chaos theory, it helps to understand how it revolutionized the universe by getting a clear picture of how we understood the universe leading up to the discovery of chaos, right?

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:39Josh Clark?

  So prior to the the scientific revolution, everybody was like, oh, well, it's God. The earth is at the center of the universe and God is spinning everything around like a top, right?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:52Josh Clark?

  It was all a theistic explanation. Then the scientific revolution happens and people start applying things like math and making like mathematical discoveries and figuring out that there are, there's order. They're finding order in patterns and predictability to the universe.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:12Josh Clark?

  If you can apply mathematics to it.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Yes, specifically if you can apply mathematics to the starting point.

• 8:19Josh Clark?

  Right, right. So if you can, if you can figure out how a system works, mathematically speaking, right?

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:26Josh Clark?

  You can go in and plug in whatever coordinates you want to.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:30Josh Clark?

  And watch it go. You can predict what, what the outcome's gonna be. And what this is, is that it's based on what, at the time, was a totally revolutionary idea. By, initially, I think Descartes was the first one to kind of say, uh, cause and effect is a pretty big part of our universe, right?

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was sort of like where, this is 1600s, where early science met philosophy.

• 8:55Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  They kind of complemented one another as far as something that's, we're, we're talking about determinism.

• 9:01Josh Clark?

  Right. So that was the, the kind of the seeds of determinism was the scientific revolution. And like you said, where philosophy and science came together in the form of Descartes, right?

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:11Josh Clark?

  And then Newton came along, and we did a whole episode on him.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, January of this year.

• 9:16Josh Clark?

  That was a good one.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  It was really good.

• 9:18Josh Clark?

  Like, I think you said in that episode that there's possibly no scientist that's changed the world more than Newton has.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 9:25Josh Clark?

  He's, he's got legs.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  People shouted out others in email, but um, I'll, I'll just say he's at the, near the top.

• 9:31Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  With some other people.

• 9:33Josh Clark?

  The cream.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:34Josh Clark?

  So Newton came along and Newton said-

• 9:36Speaker 02

  That was his name, Isaac the Cream Newton.

• 9:38Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  I think.

• 9:39Josh Clark?

  And anytime he dunked, he'd be like, "Cream!"

• 9:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:42Josh Clark?

  You just got creamed.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought he was a boxer. He's a basketball player.

• 9:46Josh Clark?

  Uh, he was much more well-known as a boxer, but he definitely could dunk as a, as a b-baller.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:53Josh Clark?

  So, um, man, that threw me off a little bit.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  That's right. The cream.

• 9:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the cream comes along and uh, he basically says, "Watch this, dudes. This cause and effect thing you're talking about, I can express it in quantifiable terms." And he comes up with all of these great laws.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:11Josh Clark?

  And, and basically sets the stage, the foundation for science for the next three centuries or so.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, these, these laws that were so rock solid and powerful that scientists kind of got ahead of themselves a little and said, "We're done."

• 10:27Josh Clark?

  Done.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Like, with Newton's laws, we can predict, uh, we can predict everything if we have a, a good enough beginning, accurate value.

• 10:35Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  To plug into his equations.

• 10:37Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  And they weren't- I think there was a little hubris and a little just excitement about like, well, we figured it all out.

• 10:45Josh Clark?

  Right, that you could take Newton's laws and if you had accurate enough measurements, you could predict what the outcome would be of that system that you plug those measurements into using these formulas, right?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  And at the time, a lot of this was planetary, like, well, we know that these planets are here and they're moving.

• 11:05Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  And they're orbiting.

• 11:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  So if we know these things, we can plug it into an equation and we can figure out what it's going to be like in 100 years.

• 11:12Josh Clark?

  Exactly, and they figured out, the basis of determinism is what we just said, that if you have accurate measurements, you can take those measurements and use them to predict how a system is going to change over time using differential equations, right?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:29Josh Clark?

  So this is what Newton comes along and figures out, that you can describe the universe in these mathematical terms using differential equations. And like you said, there was a tremendous amount of hubris and, well, I think you said there was some hubris. I think there was a tremendous amount of hubris where science basically said, we've mastered the universe. We've uncovered the blueprint of the universe and now we understand everything. It's just a matter now of getting our scientific measurements more and more and more exact.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:00Josh Clark?

  Because, again, the hallmark of determinism is that if you have exact measurements, you can predict an outcome accurately. Like the pool cue example, or the pool table example, right?

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Right, so if you've got a pool table, let's say you're playing some nine ball.

• 12:15Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  So you have that beautiful little diamond.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Set up, you got your cue ball, you put that cue ball and you crack it with the cue and if you are super accurate with your initial measurements, you should be able to mathematically plot out the angles where the balls will end up.

• 12:32Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly, like you can say, this is what the table will look like after the break. If you know the force, the angle, all those little variables.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  The temperature, if there's wind in the room, like the felt on the table, like everything, the more specific you are, the more accurate your end result will be.

• 12:49Josh Clark?

  Right, and then one of the other hallmarks of determinism is that if you take those exact same initial conditions and do them again, the table, the pool table will look exactly the same after the break.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is pretty much impossible for like a human to do with their hands.

• 13:04Josh Clark?

  Sure, but the idea at the time of science was that if you could build a

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:10Josh Clark?

  perfect machine.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 13:11Josh Clark?

  That could recreate these conditions, it will happen the same way every time, right?

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this, I mean, this led to, they had hubris, but you could understand it when, like, literally in 1846, two people predicted Neptune would exist.

• 13:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, within months.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Not would exist, but does exist.

• 13:31Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  And this is not by looking up in the sky, like, they did it with math.

• 13:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  And they were right.

• 13:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  So, imagine in 1846, when that happens, they're like, yeah, we kinda, we've got the math down, so we're pretty much all-knowing.

• 13:44Josh Clark?

  Well, plus also, for the most part, these, not just with Neptune, they were finding, that this stuff really panned out, it held true for everything from, you know, the investigation into electricity, to new chemical reactions and understanding those.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  And it, it laid, the scientific revolution laid the basis for the industrial revolution.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:08Josh Clark?

  And just the change that came out of the world like that, it definitely, it is understandable how science kind of was like, we got it all figured out.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Well, and like you said, they, even Galileo was smart enough to know

• 14:24Speaker 02

  there's uncertainty in these measurements, like, the precision is key, so they spent, what does the article say, a lot of the, much of the 19th and 20th century, just trying to build better instrumentation to get more and more, smaller and smaller, and more precise measurements.

• 14:41Josh Clark?

  Right, that was like, basically the goal of it, right?

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, which was the right direction, that's like, exactly what they should have been doing.

• 14:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Josh Clark?

  The problem is, they, like you said, Galileo knew that there was some sort of, there were gonna be some flaws in measurement, that we just didn't have those great scientific instruments yet, right?

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's called the uncertainty principle.

• 15:03Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  It prohibits accuracy.

• 15:06Josh Clark?

  Right, but, the idea is that if you have a good enough instrument, you can overcome that. And that the, the more you shrink, the...

• 15:19Josh Clark?

  Error in measuring the initial conditions.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:22Josh Clark?

  The, the more you're going to shrink the error in the outcome.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:26Josh Clark?

  It'd be proportionate, right?

• 15:27Speaker 02

  They were correct.

• 15:28Josh Clark?

  The thing is, they were also aware, but ignoring in a lot, a lot of ways, some outstanding problems, specifically something called the end body problem.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know what? I'm so excited about this. I need to take a break.

• 15:44Josh Clark?

  I think that's a good idea.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  I need to go check out my end body. In the bathroom.

• 15:49Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  And we'll be back.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 16:03Josh Clark?

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• 16:06Speaker 02

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• 16:21Speaker 04

  It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 16:29Josh Clark?

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• 16:35Speaker 05

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• 16:52Josh Clark?

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• 16:56Speaker 03

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• 17:02Speaker 02

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• 17:05Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do or buy or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly, it's usually a new rug.

• 17:16Josh Clark?

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• 17:23Speaker 02

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• 17:34Josh Clark?

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• 17:55Speaker 06

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• 18:00Josh Clark?

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• 18:37Josh Clark?

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• 18:59Josh Clark?

  All right, Chuck, we're back. So there's some, there's some issues, right? With determinism, there's some, some weird problems out there that are saying like, eh, hey, pay attention to me, because I'm not sure determinism works.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:15Josh Clark?

  And one, one is the end body problem.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, how this came about was in 1885, there was King Oscar, number two of Sweden and Norway.

• 19:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Don't want to leave out Norway, both. Uh, he said, you know what, uh, let's offer a prize to anyone who can prove the stability of the solar system.

• 19:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Something that has been stable for a long time before that. And a lot of the, the most brilliant minds on planet Earth got together and tried to do this, uh, with mathematical proofs and no one could do it. Uh, and then a dude named Henri, you gotta help me there with that last name.

• 19:55Josh Clark?

  Poincaré.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Ooh, say the whole thing.

• 19:58Josh Clark?

  Henri Poincaré.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Very nice. He was French, believe it or not. Uh, and he was a mathematician and he said, you know what? I'm not going to look at this big picture of all the planets and the sun and all their orbits.

• 20:10Josh Clark?

  You'd have to be a fool to try that.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Sure. He said, I'm going to shrink this down, like we talked about, shrinking that initial value.

• 20:16Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  You know?

• 20:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  And, um, that initial condition, he shrunk it down. He said, I'm going to look at just a couple of bodies orbiting one another, uh, with a common center of gravity, and I'm going to look at this. And this was called the N-body problem.

• 20:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which was smart to do because the more variables you factor into a, um, a nonlinear equation like that, the, just the harder it's going to be.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 20:44Josh Clark?

  He shrunk it down. So the N-body problem has to do with three or more celestial bodies orbiting one another. So Poincaré said, oh, I'll just start with three.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Smart.

• 20:55Josh Clark?

  And what he found from doing his equations for this, this King Oscar, the sequel prize, was that shrinking the initial conditions, um, measurement or rate of error, right?

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:10Josh Clark?

  Did not really shrink the, the error in the outcome.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:16Josh Clark?

  Which flies in the face of determinism. What he found was that just very, very minute.

• 21:23Josh Clark?

  Differences in the initial conditions fed into a system.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:28Josh Clark?

  Produced wildly different outcomes.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:31Josh Clark?

  After a fairly short time.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, let me just round off the mass of this planet at like, the eighth decimal point.

• 21:37Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  And, like, you know, who cares?

• 21:40Josh Clark?

  Who cares?

• 21:41Speaker 02

  At that point.

• 21:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Let me just round that one to a two.

• 21:43Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  And that would throw everything off at a, at a pretty high rate.

• 21:47Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  And he said, wait a minute, I think this contest is impossible.

• 21:54Josh Clark?

  Right. He said, there is no way to pr- to prove the stability of the solar system. Because he just uncovered the idea that it's impossible for us to predict the, um, the, the rate of change.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:12Josh Clark?

  Among celestial bodies.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's such a complex system. There are far too many variables that, uh, it's impossible to start with something so minute to get the equation, whatever, the, the sum that you want at the end.

• 22:28Josh Clark?

  Well, not only that.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Not a sum, I guess, but the result.

• 22:30Josh Clark?

  Not only that, and this is what really undermined determinism, was that he figured out that you would have to have an infinitely precise measurement.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:42Josh Clark?

  Which even if you built a perfect machine that could take the infinitely, or a perfect machine that could take a measurement of like, the vol- the, the movement of a celestial body around another.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:53Josh Clark?

  You, it, it, it's literally impossible to get infinite, an infinitely precise measurement.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:00Josh Clark?

  Which means that we could never predict out to a certain degree, the movement of these celestial bodies. Like, he was saying like, no, you, you can't get, you can't build a machine that, that gets measurements enough that we can overcome this. Like, determinism is wrong. Like, you can't just say, uh, we have the understanding to predict everything. There's a lot of stuff out there that we're not able to predict, and he uncovered it trying to figure out this end body problem.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, and King Oscar the sequel said, you win.

• 23:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Bring me another rack of lamb and, uh, here's your prize.

• 23:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  And he won by proving that it was impossible, which is pretty interesting.

• 23:41Josh Clark?

  And that utterly and completely changed not just math, but like our, our, our understanding of the universe and our understanding of our understanding of the universe, which is even more kind of earth shaking.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, he discovered dynamical instability or chaos and um they didn't have supercomputers at the time, so it would be a little while.

• 24:01Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Uh, about 70 years at MIT until uh, we could actually kind of feed these things into machines capable of plotting these things out in a way that we could see.

• 24:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Which was really incredible.

• 24:16Josh Clark?

  So there is this dude, um, 70 years later, uh, named Edward Lorenz or Lorenz.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, first of all, we should set the stage. The reason this guy, he was a meteorologist.

• 24:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  And scientist.

• 24:31Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Not that those are not the same thing.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  He's a scientist who dabbled in meteorology.

• 24:37Josh Clark?

  You're right. He was a mathematician.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, but he was really into meteorology because it was a, there was a weird juxtaposition at the time where we were sending people into outer space, but we couldn't predict the weather.

• 24:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it was, it was definitely a blot on the field of meteorology. People were like, do you guys know what you're doing?

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:56Josh Clark?

  And, and meteorologists were like, you have no idea how hard this is.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:01Josh Clark?

  Like, yeah, we can predict it a couple of days out, but after that, it's just, it's totally unpredictable. It drives us mad. And it's not, it wasn't just their, um, their reputations that were at stake. Like, people were losing their lives because of it, right?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, in 1962, there were two notorious storms, uh, one on the east coast and one on the west. Uh, the ash Wednesday storm in the east and the big blow on the west that killed a lot of people, cost hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

• 25:27Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  And people were like, you know, we need to be able to see these things coming a little more.

• 25:31Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Cause it's a problem.

• 25:33Josh Clark?

  And meteorologists were like, why don't you do it then?

• 25:37Speaker 02

  So they thought the key was these big supercomputers. Remember the supercomputers when they came out? The big rooms full of hardware.

• 25:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  It was amazing and they they were finally able to do like these incredible calculations that we could never do before.

• 25:51Josh Clark?

  I know. They were able to like crunch 64 bytes a second.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had the Abacus and then the supercomputer.

• 25:57Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  There's nothing in between.

• 25:59Josh Clark?

  Um, I looked up the computer that Lorenz was working with.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Was it the Whopper?

• 26:03Josh Clark?

  A Royal McBee. What was the Whopper?

• 26:06Speaker 02

  War Games.

• 26:07Josh Clark?

  Was it called the Whopper?

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. W O P R.

• 26:10Josh Clark?

  Right. I can't believe they called it that.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  I don't know. Pretty stupid.

• 26:13Josh Clark?

  So the guy just nicknamed it Joshua?

• 26:16Speaker 02

  No, Joshua was the uh, the.

• 26:20Josh Clark?

  Software?

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Falcon was the the old man who designed all this stuff and his son was Joshua and that was the password to get into the system.

• 26:27Josh Clark?

  That was the password?

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:29Josh Clark?

  I guess I I was too young to understand what a password was.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:32Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  You didn't even, there weren't passwords at the time.

• 26:35Josh Clark?

  No.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Password was a game show.

• 26:36Josh Clark?

  You shouted it at the computer and they were like, okay, access granted.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. Still, that movie holds up.

• 26:42Josh Clark?

  Does it really?

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Oh, totally.

• 26:43Josh Clark?

  You gotta check it out.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, still very, very fun. Young Ally Sheedy, boy, I had a crush on her from that movie.

• 26:49Josh Clark?

  She was great.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:50Josh Clark?

  What else was she in recently? Wasn't she in something?

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, she kinda went away for a while and then had her big comeback with that indie movie, High Art. But that was a while ago.

• 27:02Josh Clark?

  Has she been in anything else recently?

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Sure. I think I saw her in something in something recently and I didn't realize it was her.

• 27:09Josh Clark?

  Oh, really?

• 27:10Speaker 02

  She looks familiar. I was like, oh, that's Ally Sheedy.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 27:15Josh Clark?

  Alright.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  I could look it up, but I won't.

• 27:17Josh Clark?

  Ah, it doesn't matter.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Anyway, I still crush on her.

• 27:20Josh Clark?

  So the the uh, Royal McBee was not quite the Whopper. You could actually sit down at it.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  The Royal McBee?

• 27:28Josh Clark?

  That's the name of it.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  That sounds like a hamburger, too.

• 27:30Josh Clark?

  It was by the Royal Typewriter Company.

• 27:34Josh Clark?

  And they got into computers for a second. And this is the kind of computer that Lorenz was working with. And it was a huge deal, like you were saying, Abacus supercomputer.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:45Josh Clark?

  Um, but it was still pretty dumb as far as what we have today is concerned. But it was enough that Lorenz was like, Lorenz and his ilk were like, finally, we can start running models and actually predict the weather.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:59Josh Clark?

  He started doing just that.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  He did. So he started off with, um, a computational model of 12 meteorological, meteorological.

• 28:08Josh Clark?

  I liked how you said it.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Calculations, which is very basic because they're infinite meteorological calculations, probably.

• 28:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Depending, did I say it wrong again?

• 28:17Josh Clark?

  No, no, you're like, it sounds like you're about to say it wrong and then you pull it out at the last second.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 28:22Josh Clark?

  It's really impressive.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  But, uh, so that's very basic, but he wanted to start out, you know, with something attainable.

• 28:28Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  So he narrowed it down to 12 conditions, basically 12 calculations that had, you know, temperature, wind speed, uh, pressure, stuff like that.

• 28:37Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Started forecasting weather. Uh, and then he said, you know, it'd be great if you could see this. So I'm going to spit it into my wonder machine, the, the McWhopper.

• 28:47Josh Clark?

  The Royal McBee.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  The Royal McBee, and I'm going to get a printout so you can visualize what this looks like.

• 28:53Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  So things were going well and he had this printout and everyone was amazed because these, these calculations never seemed to repeat themselves.

• 29:02Josh Clark?

  He was making like, um, like, like word art. You remember that? Like, that was the first thing anybody did on a computer.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 29:11Josh Clark?

  Was to make word art, like a butterfly or something.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Right. You would print out, uh, yeah, I never could do that.

• 29:16Josh Clark?

  I couldn't either.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Like you have to be able to visualize things spatially. You have to have that right kind of brain for that.

• 29:23Josh Clark?

  Right. Or you have to be following a guidebook that tells you how to do it.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  True.

• 29:26Josh Clark?

  Uh, have you ever seen, uh, Me, You and Everyone We Know?

• 29:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that movie.

• 29:31Josh Clark?

  That's a great movie.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:32Josh Clark?

  Those little kids in there, they were doing that.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 29:35Josh Clark?

  The forever back and forth poop.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Well, I haven't, I haven't seen that since it came out. It's been a while.

• 29:41Josh Clark?

  Oh, you gotta see it again.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:42Josh Clark?

  Great movie.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Good movie.

• 29:44Josh Clark?

  Aly Sheedy's not in it.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 29:46Josh Clark?

  It's, uh, Miranda July.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Right. And she like wrote and directed too, right?

• 29:49Josh Clark?

  She did a great job.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  It was her show.

• 29:51Josh Clark?

  It's one of those rare movies where like. There's just the right amount of whimsy. Cause whimsy so easily overpowers everything else and becomes like.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:02Josh Clark?

  Bleh.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:04Josh Clark?

  This is like the most perfectly balanced amount of like whimsy I've ever seen in a movie.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, if there's too much whimsy, I just like.

• 30:10Josh Clark?

  Terrible.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Garden State, I just wanna punch it in the face.

• 30:12Josh Clark?

  Terrible. Although I like Garden State, but I haven't seen it since it came out.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  It hasn't aged well.

• 30:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  It's just, when you look at it now, it's just so cutesy and whimsical.

• 30:21Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  It's like, eh, come on.

• 30:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Boy, we're getting to a lot of movies today.

• 30:28Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, we're stalling.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  We haven't even talked about butterfly effect yet, which is coming.

• 30:33Josh Clark?

  It is. I'm dreading it. That's why I'm stalling.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Uh, alright, so where were we? He was running his calculations, printing out his values so people could see it. And then he got a little lazy one day, uh, in 1961. This output, he noticed, was interesting. So he said, you know, I'm gonna repeat this calculation, see it again. But I'm gonna, to save time, I'm just gonna kinda pick up in the middle. And, uh, I'm not gonna input as many numbers. But I'm still using the same values, just I'm not going out to six decimal points.

• 31:08Josh Clark?

  So the printout he had went to three decimal points.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:12Josh Clark?

  So he was working from the printout and didn't take into account that the computer accepted six decimal points. So he was just putting in three.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 31:20Josh Clark?

  And expecting that the outcome would be the same, right?

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Yes, but the outcome was way different.

• 31:23Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  And he went, whoa, whoa.

• 31:25Josh Clark?

  Wha- what?

• 31:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's like, what's going on here? It was a big deal. I mean, someone would've come up with this eventually, probably. But he sort of accidentally came upon it.

• 31:36Josh Clark?

  It's neat that this guy did this because it changed, um, his career. I think he went from, uh, emphasis on meteorology to an emphasis on chaos math.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  To stud scientist.

• 31:46Josh Clark?

  Basically. So, I mean, the guy's got a tractor named after him, you know what I mean?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, let's get to that.

• 31:53Josh Clark?

  So Lorenz starts looking at this and he's like, wait a minute, this is, this is weird. This is worth investigating. And like, uh, like, uh, what was his name? Poincaré?

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:04Josh Clark?

  He said, I need fewer variables. So I'm not gonna try to predict weather with these 12 differential equations that you have to take into account. I'm just gonna take one aspect of weather called a rolling convection current. And I'm going to see how I can. Write it down in formula form. So a rolling convection current Chuck is where you know how the wind is created where air at the surface is heated and starts to rise.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:35Josh Clark?

  And suddenly cool air from higher above comes in to fill that that vacuum that's left. And that creates a rolling or vertically based convection current.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:47Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  You could, I would describe it as oven.

• 32:51Josh Clark?

  Oven, boiling water.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:53Josh Clark?

  Cup of coffee.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 32:54Josh Clark?

  Wherever there's a temperature differential based on a vertical alignment, you're going to have a rolling convection current. Okay?

• 33:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it sounds complex, but he just picked out one thing, basically, one condition.

• 33:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  And this is the one he picked out.

• 33:08Josh Clark?

  But had you seen my hands moving, listeners, you would be like, oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  He made little roly motions.

• 33:15Josh Clark?

  So he's like, okay, I can figure this out. So he comes up with three, three formulae that kind of describe a rolling convection current. And he starts trying to figure out how to describe this rolling convection current. Right?

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 33:33Josh Clark?

  And so like I said, he got this, these three formulae, which were basically three variables that he calculated over time. And he plugged them in and he found three variables that changed over time. And he found that after a certain point, when you graph these things out, and since they're three, you graph them out on a three dimensional graph, so X, Y, and Z.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  Again, he wanted to just be able to visualize this.

• 33:55Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Cause it's easier for people to understand.

• 33:57Josh Clark?

  He was a very visual guy.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 33:59Josh Clark?

  All of a sudden, it made this crazy graph that where the, the line, as it progressed forward through time, went all over the place. It went from this axis to another axis to the other axis. And it would spend some time over here and then it would suddenly loop over to the other one. And it followed no rhyme or reason. It never retraced its path. And it was describing how a convection current changes over time. Right?

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:27Josh Clark?

  And Lorenz is looking at this, he was expecting these three things to equalize and eventually form a line.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:35Josh Clark?

  Cause that's what determinism says. Things are going to fall into a certain amount of equilibrium and just even out over time. That is not what he found.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  No.

• 34:44Josh Clark?

  And what he discovered was what Poincaré discovered, which was that.

• 34:50Josh Clark?

  Some systems, even relatively simple systems, exhibit very complex unpredictable behavior, which you could call chaos.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, and when you say things were going all over, like if you look at the graph, it's not just lines going in straight lines, bouncing all over the place randomly.

• 35:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  There was an order to it, but the lines were not on top of one another. Like, let's say you draw a figure eight with your pencil, and then you continue drawing that figure eight. It's going to slip outside those curves.

• 35:20Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Every time, unless you're a robot.

• 35:23Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  And that's what it ended up looking like.

• 35:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, it never retraced the same path twice, ever. It had a lot of really surprising properties. And at the time, it just fell completely outside the understanding of science, right?

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:39Josh Clark?

  Luckily, this happened to Lorenz, who was curious enough to be like, what is going on here? And again, he sat down and started to do the math and thinking about this, and especially how it applied to the weather, right?

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:51Josh Clark?

  And he came up with something very famous.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Yes, the butterfly effect.

• 35:56Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  A, this thing kind of looked like butterfly wings a little bit.

• 36:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  And B, when he went to present his findings, he basically had the notion, he's like, I'm going to wow these people in the crowd in 1972. It's a conference that I'm going to. And I'm going to say something like, you know, the seagull flaps its wings and it starts a small turbulence that can affect weather on the other side of the world.

• 36:24Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  The small little thing will just grow and grow and snowball and affect the things. And he had a colleague who was like, eh, seagull wings, that's nice.

• 36:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  And he said, how about this? And this is the title they ended up with. Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? And everyone was like, whoa.

• 36:47Josh Clark?

  Whoa.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  Minds blown.

• 36:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Should we take a break?

• 36:52Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 37:04Josh Clark?

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• 37:40Josh Clark?

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• 39:05Speaker 02

  All right, so the Lorenz attractor

• 39:10Speaker 02

  is that picture that he ended up with.

• 39:13Josh Clark?

  Right, that graph.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  The Lorenz attractor. And this biblical pattern website that I found described attractors and strange attractors in a way that even dumb old me could understand.

• 39:27Josh Clark?

  What you got?

• 39:28Speaker 02

  So if I may. He says, all right, here's the cycle of chaos. He said, actually, I don't know who wrote this. Could have been a woman, could have been a small child.

• 39:40Josh Clark?

  Could have been Noah.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  Of undetermined gender. I have no idea.

• 39:44Josh Clark?

  So the gender neutral narrator.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  They said, he said, all right, think about a town that has like 10,000 people living in it. To make that town work, you gotta have like a gas station, a grocery store, a a library, um, whatever you need to sustain that town.

• 40:02Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  So all these things are built. Everyone's happy. You have equilibrium. He said, so that's great. Then let's say you build some, someone comes and builds a factory on the outskirts of that town. And there's going to be 10,000 more people living there.

• 40:17Josh Clark?

  Right, and they don't go to church.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Maybe so.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Did I say church? They needed a church?

• 40:23Josh Clark?

  No, no.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 40:24Josh Clark?

  I was just assuming this is what's going to break the equilibrium.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  No, no, no. But you just have more people, so there's, you need another gas station and another grocery store, let's say. So they build all these things and then you reach equilibrium. Again, it's maintained because you build all these other systems up.

• 40:41Josh Clark?

  I see.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  That equilibrium is called an attractor.

• 40:45Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  So then he said, it said, they said.

• 40:51Josh Clark?

  He, capital he.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  The royal he said, uh, all right, now let's say instead of that, that factory being built, you, and you have those original 10,000, let's say 3,000 of those people just up and leave one day.

• 41:04Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  And the grocery store guy says, well, there's only 7,000 people here. We need 8,000 people living here to, to make a profit. So I'm shutting down this grocery store. Then all of a sudden you have demand for groceries. So things go on for a little while and someone comes in and say, hey, this town needs a grocery store. They build a grocery store.

• 41:22Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  They can't sustain. They shut down. Someone else comes along because of the demand. And it is this search for equilibrium. This dinat- well, you reach equilibrium here and there as the store opens.

• 41:37Josh Clark?

  Periods of stability.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Periods of stability and that dynamic equilibrium is called a strange attractor. So an attractor is the state which a system settles on. Stranger attractor is the trajectory on which it never settles down, but tries to reach the equilibrium with periods of stability.

• 41:57Josh Clark?

  Man.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  Does that make sense?

• 41:59Josh Clark?

  That Bible-based explanation was dynamite. I understand it better than I did before and I understood it okay before. That's great.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Surely you can add.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 42:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  No, you're gonna add to it?

• 42:13Josh Clark?

  No.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  That's it?

• 42:14Josh Clark?

  No, I mean, like it, it, it, yeah, an attractor is where if you graph something and eventually it reaches equilibrium, it's a regular attractor. If it never reaches equilibrium, it is constantly trying to and has periods of stability, strange attractor. I can't, I can't top that.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  All right. Grocery store, small town.

• 42:32Josh Clark?

  That was great. So, um, Lorenz's strange attractor was named a Lorenz attractor, named after him. Big deal.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  They weren't using the word chaos yet.

• 42:41Josh Clark?

  No, but he published that paper about butterfly wings, right?

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:45Josh Clark?

  The butterfly effect and it coupled with his pictures, the picture of a strange attractor, which is almost the, aside from fractals, almost the, uh, the, yeah, the, um, emblem or the logo for chaos.

• 43:01Josh Clark?

  The Lorentz attractors. It got attention off the bat. It wasn't like Poincaré's findings where it got neglected for 70 years. Almost immediately, everybody was talking about this. Because again, what Lorenz had uncovered, which is the same thing that Poincaré had uncovered, is that determinism is possibly based on an illusion.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:22Josh Clark?

  That the universe isn't stable, that the universe isn't predictable, and that what we are seeing as stable and predictable are these little periods,

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:31Josh Clark?

  windows of stability that are found in strange attractor graphs.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:35Josh Clark?

  That that's what we think the order of the universe is, but that that is actually the abnormal aspect of the universe.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:42Josh Clark?

  And that instability, unpredictability, as far as we're concerned, is the actual state of affairs in in nature.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:50Josh Clark?

  And I think as far as we're concerned is a really important point too, Chuck. Because it doesn't mean that nature is unstable.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:00Josh Clark?

  Chaotic. It means that our picture of what we understand as order doesn't jibe with how the universe actually functions.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:10Josh Clark?

  It's just our understanding of it.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:12Josh Clark?

  And we're just so anthropocentric that, you know, we see it as chaos and disorder and something to be feared.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:20Josh Clark?

  When really, it's just complexity that we don't have the capability of predicting.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:26Josh Clark?

  After a certain degree.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that makes me feel a little better because when you read stuff like this, you start to feel like, well, the Earth could just throw us all off of its face at any moment. Because it starts spinning so fast that gravity becomes undone. And I know that's not right, by the way.

• 44:42Josh Clark?

  I've always loved that kind of science that shows we don't know anything, like Robert Hume, who I know, I understand was a philosopher, but he was a philosopher scientist.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 44:52Josh Clark?

  His whole jam was like, cause and effect is an illusion. That like we all, it's just an assumption like that if you drop a pencil, it will always fall down.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:02Josh Clark?

  It's an illusion. And this is pre-gravity, understanding gravity. But he makes a good point.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  It's pre-gravity when everyone's just floating around.

• 45:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Pencils got me wacky.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:13Josh Clark?

  But, but the point was that, you know, we, we are, we base a lot of our assumptions,

• 45:20Josh Clark?

  or a lot of stuff that we take as law are actually based on assumptions that are made from observations over time.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:26Josh Clark?

  And that we're just making predictions that cause and effect is an illusion. I love that guy.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Pretty cool.

• 45:31Josh Clark?

  And this, this definitely supports that idea.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 45:36Josh Clark?

  Sorry, I'm, I'm excited about chaos theory.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  No, I like it. Well, I mean, I like that I've, I'm able to understand it in enough of a rudimentary way that I can talk about it at a dinner party.

• 45:47Josh Clark?

  Well, thank your Bible website. Well, once you take the formulas out.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:53Josh Clark?

  For people like us, we're like, oh, okay, we can understand chaos.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:57Josh Clark?

  Then when somebody says, good, do a differential equation, you're just like, what?

• 46:02Speaker 02

  A what? A different equation?

• 46:03Josh Clark?

  You're right.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  All right. So earlier I said that chaos had not been used, the word chaos, to describe all this junk.

• 46:10Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Uh, and that didn't happen until, uh, later on. And, well, actually, not later on.

• 46:15Josh Clark?

  About 10 years.

• 46:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it was kind of at the same time this other stuff was going on with Lorenz.

• 46:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Late 60s, early 70s. There was a guy named Stephen Smale, uh, Fields Medal recipient. So you know, he's good at math. And, um, he described something that we now know as the Smale horseshoe, and it goes a little something like this.

• 46:39Josh Clark?

  Boom, boom.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Uh, so, all right, take a piece of, uh, dough, like, like bread dough.

• 46:45Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  And you, you smash it out into a big, flat rectangle.

• 46:48Josh Clark?

  Can do.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  So you're looking at that thing and you're like, boy, I hope this makes some good bread.

• 46:53Josh Clark?

  This is gonna be so good.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  So then you just.

• 46:55Josh Clark?

  Put a little rosemary on it?

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe so. Olive oil, sea salt.

• 46:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And then, um, lick it before you bake it. So you know it's yours. No one else can have it.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Uh, so you, you have that flat rectangle of dough, you roll it up into a, uh, a tube, and then you smash that down kind of flat. And then you bend that down to where it eventually looks like a horseshoe.

• 47:17Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  So now you take that horseshoe, you take another rectangle of dough, and you throw that horseshoe onto that, and then you do the same thing. The Smale horseshoe basically says. You cannot predict where the two points of that horseshoe will end up.

• 47:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  You can roll it a million times and it'll end up in a million different places.

• 47:41Josh Clark?

  Totally random, different places, too.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Totally random. You never know. It's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

• 47:47Josh Clark?

  You have to say it.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  And that became known.

• 47:50Josh Clark?

  You have to say it.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Oh, what, imitate Forrest Gump?

• 47:52Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  No, I can't do that.

• 47:53Josh Clark?

  That's fine.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  He's not one, he's not in my repertoire.

• 47:56Josh Clark?

  That's fine.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  Although I did see that again, part of it recently.

• 48:00Josh Clark?

  Does it hold up?

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, take out forty minutes of it and it would have been a better movie.

• 48:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  Like, all of that coincidence stuff that...

• 48:09Josh Clark?

  Oh, I love that. I thought that was so charming.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  And he also did the smile t-shirt, like, it was just too much. Like, he really hammered it too much.

• 48:17Josh Clark?

  I liked it. That was the basis of the movie.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  I know, but see it again and I guarantee you, like, an hour and a half into it, you'll be like, I get it. Zemeckis.

• 48:27Josh Clark?

  You know, it was a good Tom Hanks movie that was overlooked, uh, Road to Perdition.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, not bad.

• 48:33Josh Clark?

  That was a good one.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Great Sam Mendes.

• 48:36Josh Clark?

  Oh, man, that guy's awesome.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:38Josh Clark?

  Oh, what is he gonna do? He might do something...

• 48:41Speaker 02

  He did the James Bond, he did Skyfall.

• 48:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, I know, he's gonna do...

• 48:43Speaker 02

  And also that last one that wasn't so great.

• 48:46Josh Clark?

  He's got a potential project coming up and he would be amazing for it. I don't remember what it was.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Did you see Revolutionary Road?

• 48:53Josh Clark?

  Yes, god. How, it was just like...

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, you wanna jump off a bridge, I can see that movie.

• 48:59Josh Clark?

  Like, every five minutes during that movie.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  It was hardcore.

• 49:02Josh Clark?

  It is. Uh, he did that one too, huh?

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, and don't see that if you're, like, engaged to be married or thinking about it.

• 49:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, or if you're blue already.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:11Josh Clark?

  I'm, yeah, just take a really good, good mood and be like, I'm sick of being in a good mood. Sit down and watch Revolutionary Road.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Watch Joe vs. the Volcano instead.

• 49:20Josh Clark?

  Great movie.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Uh, where was I? Smale Horseshoe is what that's called. And, um...

• 49:28Speaker 02

  That was, he was the first person to actually use the word chaos.

• 49:31Josh Clark?

  Oh, he was?

• 49:32Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 49:33Josh Clark?

  No, no, no, York was, Tom York's dad.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right. He wasn't the first person. You're correct.

• 49:38Josh Clark?

  But Smale's horseshoe illustrates a really good point, Chuck.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  Is it Tom York's dad?

• 49:43Josh Clark?

  No.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 49:44Josh Clark?

  No, but they're both British.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Sure, Yorkies.

• 49:47Josh Clark?

  Actually, one's Australian. No, they're British.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 49:51Josh Clark?

  Um, so, uh, those two points, which should, which started out right by each other and then end up in two totally different places.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:59Josh Clark?

  That applies not just to bread dough, but also to things like, uh, water molecules.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:04Josh Clark?

  That are right next to each other at some point, and then, uh, a month later, they're in two different oceans.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:11Josh Clark?

  Even though you would assume that they would go through all the same motions and everything.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Oh, sure.

• 50:15Josh Clark?

  But they're not. There's so many different variables with things like ocean currents, that, uh, two water molecules that were once side by side end up in totally random different places.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:25Josh Clark?

  And that's part of chaos. It's basically chaos personified.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:29Josh Clark?

  Or chaos moleculefied.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  So we mentioned York. Uh, where I was going with that was, um, there was an Australian named Robert May, and he was a population biologist.

• 50:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  So he was using math to model how animal populations would change over time, given certain starting conditions. Uh, so he started using, uh, these equations, these differential equations, and he came up with a formula known as the logistic difference equation that basically enabled him to predict these animal populations pretty well.

• 51:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it was working pretty well for a while, but he noticed something really, really weird, right?

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:12Josh Clark?

  He had this formula, um, the logistic difference equation?

• 51:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:16Josh Clark?

  Is the name of it.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 51:18Josh Clark?

  Okay, so we had that formula and... He figured out that if you took R, which in this case was the reproductive rate of a animal population.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:28Josh Clark?

  And you pushed it past three.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  The number three.

• 51:32Josh Clark?

  So that meant that the average animal in this population of animals had three offspring in its lifetime, or in a season, whatever.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:43Josh Clark?

  If you pushed it past three, all of a sudden, the number of the population would diverge.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you pushed it equal to three, actually, or more.

• 51:53Josh Clark?

  Right, it would diverge.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:55Josh Clark?

  Which is weird, because a population of animals can't be two different numbers, you know? Like, that herd of antelope is not, there's not thirty, but there's also forty-five of them at the same time.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:07Josh Clark?

  That's called a superposition, and that has to do with quantum states, not herds of antelopes.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 52:14Josh Clark?

  That was kind of weird. And then he found if you pushed it a little further, if you made the reproductive rate like three point oh-five-seven, or something like that, I think it was a different number, but you just tweaked it a little bit, not even to four, we're talking like

• 52:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:29Josh Clark?

  Millions of a, of a, of a degree.

• 52:32Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 52:33Josh Clark?

  Um, it, all of a sudden, it would turn into four. So there'd be four different numbers for, that was the animal population, and then it would turn into sixteen, and then all of a sudden, after a certain point, it would turn into chaos.

• 52:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 52:44Josh Clark?

  The number would be everything at once, all over the place, just totally random numbers that oscillated between.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, but in all that chaos, there would be periods of stability.

• 52:54Josh Clark?

  Right, you push it a little further, and all of a sudden, it would just go to two again.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:58Josh Clark?

  But beyond that, it didn't go back to the original two numbers, it went to another two, so if you looked at it on a graph, it went line, divided into two, divided into four, eight, sixteen, chaos, two, four, sixteen, two, four, eight, sixteen, chaos.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:14Josh Clark?

  All before you even got to the number four of the reproductive rate.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he was working with Mr. York, because he was a little confounded, so he was a mathematician buddy of his, James York from the University of Maryland, so they worked together on this, and in nineteen seventy-five, they co-authored a paper called "Period Three Implies Chaos," and man, finally, somebody said the word.

• 53:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  I kept thinking it was all these other people.

• 53:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and this this paper where they first debut the the name chaos. They they based it. Tom York's dad based it on Edward Lorenz's paper.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:55Josh Clark?

  He was like, you know what? I have a feeling this has something to do with the Lorenz attractor. So that that that provided chaos to the world and it it was the basically the third. The third time a scientist had said, hmm, we don't understand the universe like we think we do.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:14Josh Clark?

  And determinism is based on an illusion.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Like, don't you get it?

• 54:17Josh Clark?

  Of order.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:18Josh Clark?

  In a really chaotic universe. And this this established chaos, it took off like a rocket in the 80s and the 90s. You know, as you know, from Jurassic Park. Ca- chaos was everything. Everybody was like, chaos, this is totally awesome. It's the new frontier of science.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:34Josh Clark?

  And then it just went, it just went away. And a lot of people said, well, it was a little overhyped. But I think more than anything, and I think this is kind of the current understanding of chaos, because it didn't actually go away. It became a deeper and deeper field.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:48Josh Clark?

  As you'll see.

• 54:50Josh Clark?

  People mistook what chaos meant. It wasn't the a new, the new type of science.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:58Josh Clark?

  It was a new understanding of the universe. It was saying like, yes, you can still use Newtonian physics.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, don't throw everything out the window.

• 55:05Josh Clark?

  No.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  You can still try and predict weather and still try and build more accurate instruments.

• 55:09Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  And get, you know, decent results. But you can't with absolute perfection, 100% predict.

• 55:16Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Complex systems.

• 55:17Josh Clark?

  Like determinism, the the ultimate goal of determinism is false. It can never be, it can never be done.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:25Josh Clark?

  Because we can't have an infinitely precise measurement for every variable or any variable. Therefore, we can't predict these outcomes, right? So you would expect science to be like, what's the point?

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:35Josh Clark?

  What's the point of anything?

• 55:36Speaker 02

  No, not science.

• 55:37Josh Clark?

  Well, some some chaos people have said, no, this is, this is great. This is good. We'll take this, we'll take the universe as it is, rather than trying to force it into our pretty little equations. And saying like, if the ocean temperature is this at this time of year. Uh, and the fish population is this at that time, then this is how many offspring this fish stock, this fish population is going to have.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:05Josh Clark?

  Say, okay, here is the fish population. Here is the ocean temperature. Here are all these other variables. Let's feed it into a model and see what happens. Not, this is going to happen.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:17Josh Clark?

  What happens instead? And this is kind of the understanding of chaos theory now. It's taking raw data, as much data as you can possibly get your hands on. As precise data as you could possibly get your hands on.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:29Josh Clark?

  And just feeding it into a model and seeing what patterns emerge. Rather than making assumptions, it's saying, what's the outcome? What comes out of this model?

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's why like, when you see things like, you know, 50 years ago, they predicted this animal would be extinct. And it's not, well, that's because the variations were too complex.

• 56:50Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  They tried to predict. Uh, and that's why if you look at a, a 10 day forecast. You, sir, are a fool.

• 56:59Josh Clark?

  Right. It's true.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Well, 10 days from now says it's gonna rain in the afternoon. Come on.

• 57:05Josh Clark?

  But if you take, if you took enough variables for weather, for like a city. And fed it into a model of the weather for that city. You could find, uh, you could find a, a, a time when it was similar to what it is now.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:22Josh Clark?

  And you could conceivably make some assumptions based on that. You can say, whoa, actually, we can, we can predict a little further out than we think. But, um, it's, it's based on this, this theory, this understanding of chaos, of unpredictability. Of not just, not forcing nature into our formulas.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:41Josh Clark?

  But putting data into a model and seeing what comes out of it.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then at the end of that, you learn, like, when that animal is not extinct. Uh, like you thought it would be, you go back and look at the original thing and you have a more accurate picture of how the, you know, data could have been off slightly.

• 57:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  This one value.

• 57:58Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  And then you have more buffalo than you think.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 58:05Josh Clark?

  You got buffaloed by chaos.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  And we're not even getting into fractals. It's a whole other thing and we did a whole other podcast.

• 58:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  In June 2012 about fractals and the Mandelbrot.

• 58:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Mandelbret? Mandelbrot?

• 58:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  And go listen to that one and hear me clinging to the edge of a cliff.

• 58:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Clift?

• 58:25Josh Clark?

  Man, we should end this. But first, I want to say, there is a really interesting article, it's pretty understandable, on Quanta Magazine, about a guy named George Sugihara.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:39Josh Clark?

  And he is a chaos theory dude.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  Theorist.

• 58:44Josh Clark?

  Who's got a whole lab and is applying it to real life. So it's a really good picture of chaos theory in action. Go check it out.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  Oof.

• 58:55Josh Clark?

  Okay. If you want to know more about chaos theory,

• 58:59Josh Clark?

  I hope your brain's not broken.

• 59:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, go take some LSD.

• 59:03Josh Clark?

  And look at fractals.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Don't do that.

• 59:04Josh Clark?

  You can type those words into how stuff works in the search bar. Any of those, fractals, LSD, chaos, it'll bring up some good stuff. And since I said good stuff, it's time for listener mail.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this rare shout out.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  I get requests all the time and...

• 59:23Josh Clark?

  I'll bet I know which one this is.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Really?

• 59:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Dude and his girlfriend? Yeah? No?

• 59:29Josh Clark?

  So far, so good.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  Hey, guys, just wanted to say I think you're doing a wonderful job with the show to this date. My first time listening was during my first deployment.

• 59:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  Yeah? When I listened to your list on famous and influential films, and I was hooked after that. Since I came back stateside, I've spent many hours driving to and fro to see my girlfriend, to my barracks, and I can happily say that they've been made all the more enjoyable by listening to you guys.

• 59:57Josh Clark?

  That's good.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  Even my girlfriend Rachel has warmed up to you dudes, which was not a pleasant, I'm sorry, which was a pleasant shock to me, as she has told me repeatedly that she cannot listen to audiobooks because, quote, "Hearing people talk on the radio gives me a headache," end quote. Anyway, I hope you guys continue to make awesome podcasts, as I'm headed out on my next deployment. And if you could give a shout out to Rachel, I'm sure it would make her feel a little better that I got the pleasant people on the podcast to reaffirm how much I love her. And that is John. Rachel, hang in there. John, be safe.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  And thanks for listening.

• 1:00:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, man. Thank you. That was a great email. I love that one.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  Glad we don't give you a headache, Rachel.

• 1:00:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for real.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  She listens to this song, she's like, oh.

• 1:00:39Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. Everybody's gonna get a headache from this one. Like, I came to hate the sound of my own voice from this one.

• 1:00:46Speaker 02

  Ah, you'll be all right.

• 1:00:48Josh Clark?

  If you want to get in touch with us, you can hang out with us on Twitter at SYSK Podcast. Same goes for Instagram. You can hang out with us on Facebook.com/stuffyoushouldknow. You can send us an email to [email protected]. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

• 1:01:11Speaker 00

  For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

• 1:01:21Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:01:54Speaker 06

  Chevy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason, and Silverado keeps its rhythm. You feel it in the Turbo Max engine with best-in-class standard torque, an available Z71 off-road package that keeps you rolling when the road turns rough, and the most functional truck bed with best-in-class cargo space. They're trucks that work as hard as you do, so you can do more of what you love without missing a beat. Chevrolet, together let's drive. Based on latest competitive information, excludes other GM vehicles.

• 1:02:22Speaker 00

  If you're a fight fan and you haven't seen the BKFC app yet, you're missing the world's most exciting combat sport. Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship has changed the game. No gloves, no stalling, no boring rolling around on the ground, just pure violence and pure entertainment. The BKFC app includes live events, past fights, original series, behind-the-scenes access, merch discounts, and more. Only $799 a month, or $49.99 a year. Get the BKFC app at BKFC.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.