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Edward Lorenz, 1917 - 2008
Apr. 17th, 2008 09:49 amYou may not have heard of Edward Lorenz, but you've probably heard of things like "chaos theory", "the butterfly effect", and "strange attractors".
That was him. He was the meteorologist working with Van Neuman in the 1950s on an ambitious project to control the weather, when he managed to prove certain basic chaotic concepts as "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions" and "non-linear multivariant results". He showed that some systems don't have asymptotes, but rather constrained loci of steady-states which he called "strange attractors"; the "Lorenz Butterfly" is named for him (and it has nothing to do with "the butterfly effect").
He was a solitary worker, fairly quiet, and he overturned the 19th century notion that science can make everything run like better and better clockwork. It is thanks to him that the modern working definition of "noise" is "chaotic behavior we don't understand yet".
That was him. He was the meteorologist working with Van Neuman in the 1950s on an ambitious project to control the weather, when he managed to prove certain basic chaotic concepts as "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions" and "non-linear multivariant results". He showed that some systems don't have asymptotes, but rather constrained loci of steady-states which he called "strange attractors"; the "Lorenz Butterfly" is named for him (and it has nothing to do with "the butterfly effect").
He was a solitary worker, fairly quiet, and he overturned the 19th century notion that science can make everything run like better and better clockwork. It is thanks to him that the modern working definition of "noise" is "chaotic behavior we don't understand yet".
