WEBVTT - How Chaos Theory Changed the Universe 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.880 This episode of Stuff You Should Know is sponsored by Squarespace. 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:06.640 Whether you need a landing page, a beautiful gallery of 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:10.160 professional blogger and online store, it's all possible with the 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:14.200 Squarespace website. Go to squarespace dot com and set your 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:19.200 website apart. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:27.880 Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.240 I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.040 Jerry over there. So this is Stuff you Should Know, 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:39.120 the podcast about chaos theory. Like, uh, have you ever 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:44.479 seen Event Horizon? I did not bad great movie? Are 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:46.440 you crazy? I don't think it was great? Oh so 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:48.920 imagine it it. I thought it was okay. It was 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.440 like a love crafty and thing in our space. Loved 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:58.480 it all right, I love crafted it. I liked it. Um. 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:00.440 That's what I think of when I think of k US. 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:02.840 You know, there's that one part where they kind of 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.760 give you like a glimpse behind, like the dimension that 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:10.039 this action is taking place in, to see the chaos underneath, 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.880 and you should check that out again. I think about 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:21.760 Jurassic Park and Jeff Goldblum as as the creep. Dr 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:28.520 Malcolm explaining chaos in the little auto driving suv or 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:30.920 whatever that was. Yeah, that's what it was called in 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.520 the script, the auto driving suv scene. Yeah, and you 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.640 know what, he actually rewatched that scene and it confirmed 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.959 two things. One is that he uh, he actually did 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.480 a pretty decent job for a Hollywood movie with a 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.720 very rudimentary explanation of chaos. Um, and you watched it 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.680 for this Yeah, yeah, just that scene. And then it 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.000 also confirmed of what a creep that character was. Yeah, 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:56.120 if you watched that scene, he's like, you know, he's 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.720 all gross and flirty with her right in front of 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:01.880 her ex but there's just you know, he's talking to her. 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.440 I didn't even notice this at first. He like he 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.880 just like touches her hair out of nowhere for no reason. 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:09.480 He's just talking to her and he just like grabs 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.120 her hair and touches it. And I'm like, what a creep. 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:14.080 I know, if you look closely, you can see the 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.280 hormones emerging through his chest hair. Yeah, and I love 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.760 Jeff Goldblum. It's not a reflection on him. He was 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.000 basically doing Jeff Goldblum. Well that's what Yeah, sure he's 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.239 Jeff Goldblum, but I don't think that's how in the 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.160 manner in which he speaks. But I don't think he's 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:34.760 a creep, do you. Wow, I've got nothing against Jeff 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.760 gold Okay, I think he's a I think he's doing 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.120 Jeff Goldblum. It was also a sign of the times, 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:44.400 like if that movie were made today, doctor what was 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.560 her name in the movie? Yeah, Dr Sutler would be like, 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:52.480 it's very inappropriate to stroke my hair, like, don't touch me. 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:58.359 But this was the nineties. Was eight No, it was nineties. 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:02.640 It was the early mid ninety. Other thing, the book 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:07.080 came out and in the book, uh Ian Malcolm, who's 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:13.240 a Kayetician creep Kaetician? Right he um he he goes 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.600 into even more depth about chaos. But that was I mean, 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.200 that was the first time I ever heard of chaos 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:23.840 theory was from Jurassic Parks, and um it really it 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.200 was really misleading. I think the entire term chaos is 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:31.919 very misleading as far as the general public goes as 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.400 from what I researched in this this for this article. Well, yeah, 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.320 I mean you hear the word chaos as an English 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:43.440 speaker and you think frenetic and crazy, out of control. Yeah, 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.960 and that's not what it means in terms of science 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.520 like this, right. What it means, I guess we can 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:53.400 say up front is is basically the idea that complex 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.680 systems do not behave in very neat ways that we 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.680 can easily grasp, understand, ander measure, right, and not even 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.960 even simple systems don't. Sometimes it doesn't always have to 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.520 be complex. But um, I want to give a shout 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.400 out in addition to our own article to UH when 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:15.280 you know, when it comes to stuff like this, the 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.520 brain breaking stuff. For me, this is a breaker. You 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.320 know how I always go to like blank blank for 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:25.240 kids because it always helps. If there's a dinosaur mascot 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.120 on the page, it's a sure thing we can understand it. 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.240 But the best explanation for all this stuff that I 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.560 found on the internet was from a website called a 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.320 bar Um A B A R I. M. Publications, which 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:44.400 turns out to be a website about biblical patterns and 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.400 sandwiched in the middle, there is a really great, easy 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.839 to understand UH series of pages on chaos there. So 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.040 I was like, man, I get it now in a 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:59.520 rudimentary way, right, Well, yeah, um, I think even a 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:05.000 lot of people who deal with systems that display chaotic behavior, 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.560 which I guess is to say basically all systems eventually 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:12.520 under the right conditions, Um, don't necessarily understand chaos. Yeah, 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:15.320 And they defined a complex system is specifically. It doesn't 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:19.520 mean just like, oh it's complex, I mean it is, 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.479 but specifically, Um, they define it in a way that 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.039 helped me understand it's a system that has so much motion, 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.400 so many elements that are in motion, moving parts. Yeah, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.039 that it takes like a computer to calculate all the 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.359 possibilities of like what that could look like five minutes 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.760 from now, ten years from now. So before computers came around, 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:46.320 we before the quantum mechanical revolution, it was there's a 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.599 lot more basic. It was like what comes up must 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.719 come down, stuff like that. Let's talk about that, Chuckers, 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.760 because when you're talking about chaos theory, it helps to 0:05:54.839 --> 0:06:00.200 understand how it revolutionized the universe by getting a clear 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.279 picture of how we understood the universe leading up to 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:09.600 the discovery of chaos. Right, So, prior to the um 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:14.120 the scientific revolution, everybody was like, oh, well, it's it's God. 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.000 The Earth is at the center of the universe and 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.000 God is spinning everything around like a top right, it 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.839 was all a theistic explanation. Then the scientific revolution happens 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.080 and people start applying things like math and making like 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.600 mathematical discoveries and and and figuring out that there are 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:37.279 there's order. They're finding order in patterns and predictability to 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:42.560 the universe if you can apply mathematics to it, specifically, 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:47.040 if you can apply mathematics to the starting point, right, right, 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.800 So if you can, if you can um figure out 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.360 how a system works mathematically speaking, right, you can go 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.440 in and plug in whatever coordinates you want to and 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.760 watch it go. You can predict what what the outcomes 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.640 can be and what this is the it's based on 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:07.160 what at the time was a totally revolutionary idea um 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:11.480 By Initially, I think the cart was the first one 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.600 to kind of say, causing effect is a pretty big 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.000 part of our universe, right. Yeah. It was sort of 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.520 like where this is sixteen hundreds, where early science met philosophy. 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.520 They kind of complimented one another as far as something 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.320 that's we're talking about determinism, right, So that was the 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.840 kind of the seeds of determinism. Was the scientific revolution, 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.640 And like you said, where philosophy and science came together 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.440 in the form of Descartes, right, and then Newton came 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.640 along and we did a whole episode on him. Yeah, 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.720 January of this year. That was a good one. It 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.280 was really good. Like I think you said in that 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.560 episode that there's possibly no scienists that changed the world 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.720 more than Newton has. He's he's got legs. People shouted 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.200 out others and email, but I'll just say he's at 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.239 the near the top for sure with some other people. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.800 The Cream. Yeah, so Newton came along and Newton said 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.720 that was his name, Isaac the Cream new anytime he 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.080 don't to be like cream. Yeah, you just got creamed. 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:12.559 I thought he was a boxer. He's a basketball player. 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.680 He was much more well known as a boxer, but 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:20.000 he definitely could dunk as a as a B baller. So, 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.760 um man, that threw me off a little bit. Yeah, 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:29.440 the Cream comes along and uh, he basically says, watch this, dude, 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.840 this causing effect thing you're talking about, I can express 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.080 it in quantifiable terms. And he comes up with all 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.439 of these great laws and and basically sets the stage 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.800 the foundation for science for the next three centuries or so. Yeah, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.880 these these laws that were so rock solid and powerful 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.880 that scientists kind of got ahead of themselves a little 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:57.120 and said we're done. Like with Newton's laws, we can predict, uh, 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.720 we can predict everything if we have a good enough 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.920 beginning accurate value to plug into his equations, and they weren't. 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:07.600 I think there was a little hubrius and a little 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.280 just excitement about like, well we figured it all out 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.640 right that that you could take Newton's laws and if 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:19.520 you had accurate enough measurements, uh, you could predict what 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.360 the outcome would be of that system that you plug 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.240 those measurements into using these formula. And at the time, 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.839 a lot of this was like planetary, like, well, we 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:31.959 know that these planets are here and they're moving and 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.120 their orbiting, So if we know these things, we can 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.600 plug it into an equation and we can figure out 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.079 what it's going to be like in a hundred years exactly. 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:43.959 And they figured out the basis of determinism is what 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.400 we just said, that if you have accurate measurements, you 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.720 can take those measurements and use them to predict um 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.679 how a system is going to change over time using 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.880 differential equations. Right, yeah, so this is what this is 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.200 what Newton comes along and figures out that you can 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:03.280 describe the uni us in these mathematical terms using differential 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.560 equations and um like, you said there was a tremendous 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.440 amount of hubris, and well, I think you said there's 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.680 some hubris. I think there's a tremendous amount of hubris 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.959 where science basically said, we've mastered the universe, We've uncovered 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.720 the blueprint of the universe, and now we understand everything. 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.439 It's just a matter now of getting our scientific measurements 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.040 more and more and more exact. Because again, the hallmark 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.080 of determinism is that if you have exact measurements, you 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:35.280 can predict an outcome accurately, like the pool queue example 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:39.080 or the pool table example. Right right, So if you've 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.079 got a pool table, let's say you're playing some nine ball. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.840 You have that beautiful little diamond set up, you got 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.360 your cue ball, you put that cue ball, and you 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.320 you crack it with the queue, and if you are 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.640 super accurate with your initial measurements, you should be able 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.640 to mathematically plot out via angles where the balls will 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.280 end up, right exactly, like you can say, this is 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:03.559 what the table will look like after the break. If 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.959 you know the force the angle, all those little variable temperature, 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.720 if there's wind in the room, like the felt on 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.960 the table, like everything. The more specific you are, the 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.480 more accurate your end result will be. Right. And then 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:18.920 one of the other hallmarks of determinism is that if 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:23.240 you take those exact same initial conditions and do them again, 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.200 the table, the pool table will look exactly the same 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.200 after the break, which is pretty much impossible for like 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.480 a human to do with their hands. Sure, but the 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.480 idea at the time of science is that if you 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.200 could build a perfect machine, sure that could recreate these conditions, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.520 it will happen the same way every time. Right, And this, 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.480 I mean this led to they had hubris, but you 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:52.239 could understand it when like literally in two people predicted 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.480 Neptune would exist within months, that would exist, but does exist. 0:11:57.920 --> 0:11:59.480 And this is not by looking up in the sky 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.199 like they did it with math and they were right. 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:07.160 So imagine in eighty when that happens, they're like, yeah, 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.079 we kinda we've got the math down, so we're pretty 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.800 much all knowing well. Plus also, for the most part, 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:17.960 these not just with Neptune, they were finding um that 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.880 this stuff really panned out. It held true for everything 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.920 from um you know, the investigation into electricity to new 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:30.240 chemical reactions and understanding those and it it laid the 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.520 scientific revolution, laid the basis for the industrial revolution, and 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.080 just the change that came out of the world like that. 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:41.080 It definitely there. It is understandable how science kind of 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.400 was like we got it all figured out well, and 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:48.680 like you said, they even Galileo was smart enough to 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:56.240 know there's uncertainty in these measurements, like the precision is key. 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.880 So they spent what does the article say, a lot 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.680 of the much of an enth and twenty century just 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.920 trying to build better instrumentation to get more and more 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.000 smaller and smaller and more precise measurements. Right, That was 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.120 like basically the goal of it, right, Yeah, which was 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:13.520 the right direction. That's like exactly what they should have 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:18.520 been doing. The problem is there, Like you said, Galileo 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.800 knew that there was some sort of there there gonna 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.199 be some flaws and measurement that we just didn't have 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:29.480 those great scientific instruments yet. It's called the uncertainty principle. 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:35.880 It's accuracy, right, But the idea is that if you 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.520 have a good enough instruments, you can overcome that, and 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:46.000 that the the more you shrink the um error in 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:50.800 measuring the initial conditions, the more you're gonna shrink the 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.640 error in the outcome. It would be proportionate. Right. They 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:58.040 were correct. The thing is they were also aware but 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:03.439 ignoring in a lot a lot of ways some outstanding problems, 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:08.120 specifically something called the end body problem. You know what, 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.679 I'm so excited about this. I need to take a break. 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:12.320 I think that's a good idea. I need to go 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:17.400 check out my end body in the bathroom. Okay, and 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:37.240 we'll be back. All right, check, we're back. So there's 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:41.320 some there's some issues right with determinism. There's some some 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:46.280 weird problems out there that are saying like, hey, pay 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:51.280 attention to me because I'm not sure determinism works. Uh. 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.640 And one of the one is the end body problem. Yeah. 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:58.880 How this came about was that was King Oscar number 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.960 two of Sweet and Norway. Yeah, I don't want to 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.080 leave out Norway both. Uh. He said, you know what, 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.920 let's offer a prize to anyone who can prove the 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.720 stability of the solar system something that has been stable 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.160 for a long time before that and a lot of 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.240 the most brilliant minds on planet Earth got together and 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.720 tried to do this, uh with mathematical proofs, and no 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:28.640 one could do it. Uh. And then a dude name Honoree. 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.400 You gotta help me there with that, Oh, say, the 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:38.240 whole thing very nice. He was French, believe it or not, 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:40.920 and he was a mathematician, and he said, you know what, 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.080 I'm not gonna look at this big picture of all 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.320 the planets in the sun and all their orbits. You'd 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:48.360 have to be a fool to try that. Sure, he said, 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.320 I'm gonna shrink this down, Like we talked about shrinking 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:56.200 that initial value, you know, and um, that initial condition. 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:57.840 He shrunk it down. He said, I'm gonna look at 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:02.960 just a couple of bodies orbiting one another, uh, with 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.640 a common center of gravity. And I'm gonna look at this. 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.240 And this was called the N body problem. Yeah, which 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.200 was smart to do, because the more variables you factor 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:18.240 into um a nonlinear equation like that, just the harder 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:20.600 it's gonna be. So he shrunk it down. So the 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.520 N body problem has to do with three or more 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.360 celestial bodies orbiting one another. So Plank said, I'll just 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:32.160 start with three. Smart and what he found from doing 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.960 his equations for this this King Oscar. The sequel prize 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:43.520 um was that shrinking the initial conditions um measurement or 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:49.760 rate of error right, did not really shrink the the 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:54.160 error in the outcome, which flies in the face of determinism. 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:59.840 What he found was that just very very minute different 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.880 is in the initial conditions fed into a system produced 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:09.119 wildly different outcomes after a fairly short time. Yeah, like, 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.360 let me just round off the mass of this planet 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:16.159 at like the eighth decimal point, and you know who cares? 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.760 Who cares at that point? Let me just round that 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.800 one to a two, and that would throw everything off 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.840 at a at a pretty high rate. And he said, 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:30.560 wait a minute, I think this contest is in polsib right, 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.840 He said, there is no way to prove prove, to 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:39.520 prove the stability of the Solar system, because he just 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:44.120 uncovered the idea that it's impossible for us to predict 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:50.200 the the the rate of change among celestial bodies. Yeah, 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.360 it's such a complex system. There are far too many 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:58.639 variables that, uh, it's impossible to start with something so 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:04.000 minute to get the equation whatever the sum that you want. Well, 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.080 not only that, but the result, not only that and 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:11.800 this is what really undermined determinism was that he figured 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:16.640 out that you would have to have an infinitely precise measurement, 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.640 which even if you build a perfect machine that could 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.000 take the infinitely or a perfect machine that could take 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.240 a measurement of like the the movement of a celestial 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:33.960 body around another, you, it's literally impossible to get infinite 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:38.280 and infinitely precise measurement, which means that we could never 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.399 predict out to a certain degree the movement of the 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.840 celestial bodies. Like he was saying, like, no, you you 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.320 can't get You can't build a machine that that gets 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:53.359 measurements enough that we can overcome this, like determinism is wrong, 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.960 Like you can't just say, uh, we have the understanding 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:02.000 to predict everything. There's a lot of stuff out there 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.480 that we're not able to predict. And he uncovered it 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:06.879 trying to figure out this end body problem. Yeah, and 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.520 King Oscar the sequel said you win, Yeah, bring me 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.840 another rack of lamb and uh, here's your prize. And 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.600 he won by proving that it was impossible, which is 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:21.680 pretty interesting. And they utterly and completely changed not just math, 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.199 but like our our our understanding of the universe, and 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.960 our understanding of our understanding of the universe, which is 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.719 even more kind of earth shaking. Yeah, he discovered dynamical 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:36.119 instability or chaos, and um, they didn't have supercomputers at 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.639 the time, so it would be a little while, about 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:43.400 seventy years at m I T until uh we could 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.280 actually kind of feed these things into machines capable of 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.280 plotting these things out in a way that we could see, 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.440 which was really incredible. So there is this dude um 0:19:54.600 --> 0:20:01.800 seven years later, uh named um Edward Lawrence Lawrence. Yeah. Well, 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:03.879 first of all, we should set the stage the reason 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.040 this guy he was a meteorologist and scientists, right, not 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.119 that those are not the same thing, right, He's a 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.960 scientist who dabbled the meteorology. Here was a mathematician, Yeah, 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.720 but he was really into meteorology because it was there 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.440 was a weird juxtaposition at the time where we were 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.880 sending people into outer space but we couldn't predict the weather. Yeah, 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.640 and it was it was definitely a blot on the 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.479 field of meteorology. People were like, do you guys know 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.000 what you're doing? And and meteorologists are like, you have 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.280 no idea how hard this is? Like yeah, we can 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:40.160 predict it a couple of days out, but after that, 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.280 it's just it's totally unpredictable. It drives as mad and 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.960 it's not. It wasn't just there. Um, their reputations that 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.200 were at stake, like people were losing their lives because 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.640 of it, right, Yeah. N two there were two notorious storms, 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.000 one on the East coast and one on the west. Uh, 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:58.280 the ash Wednesday storm in the East and the big 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.680 blow on the West that of a lot of people, 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:04.639 cost hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. And people 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:05.879 were like, you know, we need to be able to 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.200 see these things coming a little more because it's a problem. 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.600 And meteorologists were like, why did you do it then? 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:17.359 So they thought the key was these big supercomputers. Remember 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.640 the supercomputers. When they came out the big rooms full 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.480 of hardware, it was amazing, and they were finally able 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.040 to do like these incredible calculations that we could never 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.040 do before. I know, they were able to like crunch 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.040 sixty four bites a second. Yeah, we had the advocates 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:36.080 and then the supercomputer. There was nothing in between. Um. 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.919 I looked up the computer that Lawrence was working with 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.719 the Whopper Royal McBee. What was the Whopper board games? 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.000 Was it? It called the Whopper w a PR I 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.960 can't believe they called it that. So the guy just 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:57.560 nicknamed it Joshua. No, Joshua was the the software Falcon 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.159 was the old man who designed all the stuff up 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.360 and his son was Joshua. And that was the password. Oh, 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.280 that was the password. Yeah, I guess I was too 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.400 young to understand what a password was. Okay, you didn't 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.840 even there weren't passwords at the time. Shouted it at 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.800 the computer and they're like, okay, access granted. Yeah. Still 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:20.400 that movie holds up. Does it really check it out? Yeah, 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.719 it's still very very fun. Young Ali Sheety boy had 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.520 a crush on her from that movie. She was great. Yeah. 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:30.440 What else was she in recently? Wasn't she in something? Well? 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:32.520 I mean she kind of went away for a while 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.480 and then had her big comeback with the indie movie 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.679 High Art, But that was a while ago. Has she 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.160 been in anything else recently? Sure? I think I saw 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.200 something and something recently and I didn't realize that was her. 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.639 She looks familiar and I was like, oh, that's Ali Sheety. 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:53.000 I don't know, all right, I could look it up, 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:55.960 but I won't. It doesn't matter anyway. I still crushed 0:22:56.000 --> 0:23:00.879 on her. So the the Royal mcbeebe was not quite 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:03.080 the whopper. You could actually sit down at it. The 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.359 Royal McBee that's the name of that sounds like a 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:10.040 hamburger too. It was by the Royal Typewriter Company. And 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:12.840 they got into computers for a second. And this is 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.080 the kind of computer that Lawrence was working with, and 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:21.760 it was a huge deal, Like you were saying, Avacus supercomputer. Um. 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:25.200 But it was still pretty dumb as far as what 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:27.560 we have today is concerned. But it was enough that 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:31.000 Lawrence is like Lawrence and his ILK, where like, finally 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:35.320 we can start running models and actually predict the weather. Yeah, 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:38.360 he started doing just that. He did. So he started 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:44.240 off with UM, a computational model of twelve meteorological meteorological 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:48.280 I like how you calculations, which is very basic because 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:53.480 they're infinite meteorological calculations, probably depending to stay wrong again, 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:56.520 like it sounds like you're about to say it wrong 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:58.199 and then you pull it out at the last second. 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:01.520 Maybe it's really impressive, but uh so that's very basic. 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:03.879 But he wanted to start out you know with something 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:06.840 at Hannibal. So he narrowed it down to twelve conditions, 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:11.920 basically twelve calculations that had you know, temperature, wind, speed, pressure, 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:16.720 stuff like that started forecasting weather. Uh. And then he said, 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:18.199 you know, it'd be great if you could see this, 0:24:18.960 --> 0:24:21.919 So I'm gonna spit it into my wonder machine, the 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:27.280 McWhopper Royal MCB, and I'm gonna get a print out 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:31.120 so you can visualize what this looks like. So things 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:32.520 were going well and you had this print out, and 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:36.439 everyone was amazed because these these calculations never seemed to 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:42.560 repeat themselves. He was making like, um, like like word art. 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:45.320 You remember that. That was the first thing anybody did 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:47.520 on a computer. Oh yeah, it was to make word 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:50.760