34.5 Complexity and Chaos

The Hubble Space Telescope is giving out exciting data with no atmospheric distortion.

There are disks of material around stars thought to precede planet formation, black hole candidates, and collision of comets with Jupiter.

Normal matter may be shepherded in space by dark matter.

Dark matter can be invisible and even move through normal matter.
The universe would have been made flat by the correct production of these particles.
In order to explain dark matter and other phenomena, the proposal invokes two entirely new forms of matter.
Being very difficult to observe directly is what wimps have.
This is similar to quark confinement in that it guarantees that quarks are there, but they can't be seen directly.
One of the main goals of the LHC is to produce and detect WIMPs.
Before WIMPs are accepted as the best explanation, all other possibilities will have to be shown inferior.
We will be in a position of admitting that only 10% of what exists exists.
A far cry from the days when people believed that they were the center of the universe and the reason for its existence.

The underlying connections and basic simplicity of the laws we have discovered are what impress us about physics.

Many basic systems we study are simple enough that we can perform controlled experiments and discover relationships in the language of physics.
The predictions of previously unobserved particles come from the simple underlying patterns we have been able to recognize.
The simple laws of physics apply, of course, but complex systems may reveal patterns that simple systems do not.
The ability of complex systems to evolve is of particular interest.

There is a primordial ocean.

The oceans were a random mix of elements and compounds that obeyed the laws of physics and chemistry.

Simulations show that the emergence of life was far too fast to have come from random combinations of compounds.

There must be an underlying ability of the complex system to organize itself.
Living entities are very organized and systematic.
Complex adaptive systems are the systems of living organisms.
The geological record of steps taken along the way of the grandest of these evolved into the biological system we have today.

The discipline of complexity looks for similarities with other complex adaptive systems.

Economic systems emerge quickly, they show tendencies for self-organization, they are complex, and they adapt and evolve.

All biological systems do the same things.
Complex adaptive systems are being studied for similarities.
Cultures show signs of change.
The comparisons of cultural and biological evolution may bear fruit.
Culture and economics are examples of a complex system of human interactions that adapt to new information and political pressure.
People who study creative thinking see parallels with complex systems.
Humans organize almost random pieces of information, often subconsciously, and come up with brilliant creative insights.
The development of language is a complex adaptive system.

Artificial intelligence attempts to create an adaptive system that will evolve in the same way as an intelligent living being learns.

Those who investigate complexity are studying a wide range of topics.

The emerging topic of complexity is popularized by the establishment of institutes, journals, and meetings.

In traditional physics, the discipline of complexity can yield insights.

There is organization, adaptation, and evolution in those systems.
New approaches to non-equilibrium phenomena, such as heat transfer and phase changes, may evolve from complexity as a discipline.
Another example of self-organization is crystal growth.

Some of the simple characteristics of the alloy suggest self-organization.

The organization of iron atoms as they cool is another.
Insights into these difficult areas will emerge from complexity.
The discipline of complexity is an example of human effort to understand and organize the universe around us.

Chaos has become a discipline of its own after it was widely publicized.

It is based on physics and treats many different types of phenomena.
Due to small interactions with other planets, the orbit of the planet Pluto may be chaotic.
We can't tell precisely where a decaying Earth satellite will land or how many pieces it will break into, just as we can't predict its long-term behavior.
The discipline of chaos has been used to deal with unrelated systems.

The heartbeat of people with potentially lethal arrhythmias seems to be chaotic, and this knowledge may allow more sophisticated monitoring and recognition of the need for intervention.

Chaos is related to complexity.

One example of a chaotic system that is inherently complex is the double pendulum.
Both are chaotic and not predictable like other systems.
Organization in chaos can be quantified.
The planets in our solar system may be chaotic.
The first eight planets and the asteroid belt are organized and systematic.
Jupiter's atmosphere is chaotic, but the Great Red Spot is stable.
The Great Red Spot is a complex self-adaptive system that has existed for at least 400 years.

The emerging field of complexity is related to physics.

Both try to see the same systematics in a wide range of phenomena and generate a better understanding of them.
Time will tell what impact these fields have on traditional areas of physics as well as other disciplines.

The Mandelbrot set is a complex mathematical form that is chaotic.

As you look closer, you can see that the patterns are fine and indicate order.

The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is an example of self-organization.

The triple-Earth-size spot in Jupiter's atmosphere is self-organized and stable for hundreds of years.
They are familiar to the general public because of their practical applications, and have been mentioned at a number of points in the text.
Because the resistance of a piece of superconductor is zero, there are no heat losses for currents through them; they are used in magnets needing high currents, and could cut energy losses in power transmission.
Most superconductors have to be cooled to a few kelvin above absolute zero, a costly procedure that limits their practical applications.
In the past decade, tremendous advances have been made in the production of materials that become superconductors.
Room temperature superconductors may one day be manufactured.

The Dutch physicist H. Kamerlingh Onnes accidentally discovered superconductivity when he used liquid helium to cool mercury.

The first workable theory of how and why a material became a superconductor came in 1957.

Some elements were found to be superconductors, but all had less than 10 K, which is expensive to maintain.
In 1913, Onnes received a prize for his work with liquid helium.

The temperature of liquid nitrogen makes perfect conductors ideal for saving electric energy.

It costs $5 per liter to make materials with a boiling point of 4 K. The cost of liquid nitrogen is about $0.30 per liter.

The first commercial use of a high temperature superconductor is in an electronic device.

High-temperature superconductors are being researched in thin film applications.

The graph shows a transition to zero at the critical temperature Tc.

The easily achieved 77-K temperature of liquid nitrogen is not enough for high temperature superconductors.

A characteristic of a superconductor is that it repels other magnets.

The small magnet above the high-temperature superconductor gives evidence that the material is superconducting.

The magnet will rest upon it when the material warms up.

Many copper oxide ceramics, including strontium, mercury, or yttrium, as well as barium, calcium, and other elements, are being searched for.

The ideal room temperature would be about 293 K, but any temperature close to room temperature is cheap to produce and maintain.

They are now called USOs because of their frustration and the refusal of some samples to show high even though produced in the same manner as others.

Researchers are reluctant to claim the breakthrough they seek because of the importance of reproducibility.
Time will tell if USOs are real or not.

The theory of ordinary superconductors is difficult because of quantum effects.

The way in which electrons couple allows them to get through the material and make it a superconductor.
Physicists seem to be closing in on a workable theory of high superconductors.
The higher the temperature, the more difficult it is to understand how electrons can sneak through without losing energy.