The buck stops here.

Get On Your Feet | Gloria Estefan

Chaos Theory & The Beautiful Geometry of Double Pendulum

Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including meteorology, sociology, physics, engineering,etc…. In a scientific context, the word chaos has a slightly different meaning than it does in its general usage as a state of confusion, lacking any order. Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules.

Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. These systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos. The theory was summarized by Edward Lorenz as follows: “Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” (pg 68).

Chaotic behavior can be observed in many natural systems, such as weather and climate. This behavior can be studied through analysis of a chaotic mathematical model, or through analytical techniques such as recurrence plots and Poincaré maps.

See more at: Chaos theory on Wikipedia & What is chaos theory? on WhatIs.com.

Figure 1-2-4-5: Double Pendulum Experiment by George Ioannidi

Figure 3 (Animated gif): Chaos and the Double Pendulum by Fouriestseries on Tumblr.

Figure 6: Double Pendulum with LEDs by Michael G Devereux on Flickr.

Fugure 7-8:  (μ = 2.75, α = 171°) & (μ = 1.21, α = 154°) - Source: Double Pendulum.

November 11th 1918: WW1 armistice

On this day in 1918, Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allied powers, thus officially ending combat in the First World War. The agreement was signed in a train carriage in France. Fighting ended at 11am, as it was the eleventh hour in the eleventh month on the eleventh day. This marked Allied victory in the war that had raged since 1914 but negotiations continued at the Paris Peace Conference and the war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. The Treaty set up a ‘League of Nations’ which was to be a group of countries dedicated to the preservation of global peace. Every year the Commonwealth nations commemorate the fallen soldiers in Remembrance Day, and hold a two minute silence in their honour. Other nations around the world have similar days of remembrance for the around 10 million soldiers who died in the conflict. This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of this terrible conflict, so this Remembrance Day is a particularly poignant moment to remember the fallen of the First World War.

Because there is an often-overlooked technicality that a lot of those young voters and ethnically-diverse voters seem to forget about — you actually have to vote in order for your demographic to make a difference.

#Hashtagtivism, strong words, and noisy complaints are simply worthless when it comes down to the wire. The only thing that matters — the only direct action that has a real, tangible, undeniably powerful effect in elections is voting. That’s it. The demographics do favor progressive causes, and if all of those progressive-thinking people actually showed up in midterm elections or local elections or invested a few minutes into understanding ballot initiatives, the balance of power would clearly shift and that group of the electorate would become so important to political leaders that their causes and issues and hopes would be truly represented. That’s how political power works; you make yourself indispensable to the people that are being elected. Then they actually fight for you and either share your beliefs and/or goals or risk losing their job. But votingis the only way to take advantage of the political system, and I don’t know why that is so difficult for so many people to understand.

It’s really not all that complicated. Making sure that your candidates or issues receives more votes than the other side is how you win. Actually going to the polls (or filling out your absentee or vote-by-mail ballot) and casting your vote is the only way to make your vote count. If you gather other like-minded people who support the same issues and candidates and make sure they get to the polls on Election Day, you have a better chance of winning.

But if there are far more people 65-and-over who actually show up and cast ballots, those progressive causes are going down in flames more often than not and the beliefs of the electorate’s younger demographic is likely not going to be represented. There’s no excuse for it. That’s why I always say that it’s the people’s fault. On Tuesday, just 13% of the voters who cast ballots were under 30 years old. That is an embarrassment. Just think about that percentage and think about what I’m saying about the importance of actually casting your vote. If everyone in college participated, that percentage would probably be 10 points higher. Add on another significant amount of percentage points for people ages 24-30 who didn’t vote because it wasn’t an “interesting” election, wasn’t a Presidential election, or because there wasn’t an initiative to legalize marijuana on the ballot, and the demographic that stayed home on Tuesday would have been enough to keep control of the Senate, swing some Governor’s races into the Democrats’ favor, probably knock off some folks who had no business being re-elected but got lucky because of apathetic young voters (Governor Walker of Wisconsin, Governor Deal of Georgia, Governor Scott of Florida), and helped keep the President of the United States from becoming a lame duck with two full years left in his term.

This isn’t radical thinking; it’s common sense. If you believe in progressive causes and you’re disappointed, it’s because the people on your team didn’t work hard enough. The demographics absolutely favor you (and by “you”, I also mean “me”), but too many of your people stayed home, and that’s almost criminally irresponsible because it’s so important and so easy to control. When we’re complaining about gridlock and petty, partisan bullshit holding up important legislation and Presidential appointees, I hope that we’ll remember that it’s completely our fault. I also hope that, in two years, most of us remember that all we have to do is vote. 

Then again, I have that hope every two years, and I still find myself consistently surprised that we don’t learn from our failures. In two years, most people will be hypnotized by the attack ads and constant fundraising e-mails from candidates and political parties, and the parties will spend every last penny that they can raise, find, or borrow on more commercials, preferably those where they don’t even have to say their own candidate’s name. And all of that bullshit will turn people off from the election, and they’ll stay home, and while the parties probably deserve blame for desensitizing us to the importance of elections, it’s still the people’s fault for not being capable enough to see through the ruins and find the path to actually getting shit done. It’s been proven time-and-time again that the American people are not capable of doing the right thing and need to be spoon-fed everything, so I’m hoping that some campaign or some candidate will actually have a flash of brilliance and decide, “Hey, instead of more attack ads, I’m going to spend that money on getting people to the polls on Election Day because it’s the vote that matters, not the most clever or vicious ad…especially since literally nobody pays attention to the commercials at all.”