The Oil Drum

67 comments on National Hurricane Center and the Likelihood of Hurricanes

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Dan Ur on March 16, 2006 - 1:52am

But chaos can be predicted if we have a big enough chaos theory predicting program. But this is not true chaos, this is a big set of variables that we have not yet wrapped our hands around to see the outcomes of the things that are going on. Cause and Effect are happening on a vast scale, but they are happening in a Logical manner even in the oceans. So technically speaking its not Chaos, Just not yet understood by us humans.

Maybe I have just written to much science fiction and Read to many papers on Chaos and how to make the complex simple.
I almost feel as if I know where this is all heading but can't quite put my finger on it.

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Magnus Redin on March 16, 2006 - 5:38am

It is very hard to conclude what the boundaries of outcome are for this chaotic system, and how can we conclude if the chaos inside these boundaries is predicatble or not? It might be like a very simple multiple hinged pendulum problem, we can predict how the swings will peter out on average but not in wich direction it will swing a number of swings into the future since imperfections give changes that gets larger for each swing. The need to know everything about the starting conditions is sooner or later limited by our ability to measure.