ABSTRACT
Chaos can readily occur in classical mechanics, but also in the study of fluids: turbulence of fluids is a well-known example of chaos; in the case of weather forecasting the fluid involved is the atmosphere. The interpretation of turbulence as involving chaos was suggested in 1971 by the Belgian-born physicist David Ruelle and by Floris Takens of Groningen. There are two ways of looking at the results from chaos, positive and negative. Duly famous, Edward Lorenz was asked to address the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1972. His title was ‘Predictability: does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?’ This led to the notion of the ‘butterfly effect’. In fact populations of animals and humans grow more slowly and erratically because of food shortage, illness, and wars. The entropy generation rates can be calculated from this study of human body energetics.
