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The main catalyst for the development of chaos theory was the electronic computer. Much of the mathematics of chaos theory involves the repeated iteration of simple mathematical formulas, which would be impractical to do by hand. Electronic computers made these repeated calculations practical, while figures and images made it possible to ...
The nature of chaos theory suggests that the predictability of any system is limited because it is impossible to know all of the minutiae of a system at the present time. In principle, the deterministic systems that chaos theory attempts to analyze can be predicted, but uncertainty in a forecast increases exponentially with elapsed time.
Methodologically, social complexity is theory-neutral, meaning that it accommodates both local and global approaches to sociological research. [2] The very idea of social complexity arises out of the historical-comparative methods of early sociologists; obviously, this method is important in developing, defining, and refining the theoretical ...
More precisely, this example works to explain a kind of math called chaos theory, which looks at how small changes made to a system’s initial conditions—like the extra gust of wind from a ...
The Foundation book combined accessible examples of how rational choice theory could function in the analysis of such sociological topics as authority, trust, social capital and the norms (in particular, their emergence). In this way, the book showed how rational choice theory could provide an effective basis for making the transition from ...
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. The term is closely associated with the work of the mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz.
The field of social dynamics brings together ideas from economics, sociology, social psychology, and other disciplines, and is a sub-field of complex adaptive systems or complexity science. The fundamental assumption of the field is that individuals are influenced by one another's behavior.
Experimental control of chaos by one or both of these methods has been achieved in a variety of systems, including turbulent fluids, oscillating chemical reactions, magneto-mechanical oscillators and cardiac tissues. [6] attempt the control of chaotic bubbling with the OGY method and using electrostatic potential as the primary control variable.