CHAOS, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT ----------------------------------------------------------- Georgia Tech PHYS 7123 Fall semester 2003 Predrag Cvitanovic' Lecture 1: 9:35-10:55 Tue Aug 19 2003 in Howey S106 An overview of the reading material ----------------------------------- That deterministic dynamics leads to chaos is no surprise to anyone who has tried pool, billiards or snooker - that is what the game is about - so we start our course about what is chaos and what to do about it by a game of pinball. This might seem a trifle trivial, but a pinball is to chaotic dynamics what a pendulum is to integrable systems: thinking clearly about what is ``chaos'' in a pinball will help us tackle more difficult problems, such as computing diffusion constants in deterministic gases, or computing the Helium spectrum. What will really happen ----------------------- This time (and this time only) I will use lots of transparencies to give you the "big picture" - why is this stuff interesting and worth learning? You can sit back and relax - on Thursday we get down to brasstacks. And remember throughout this course: if there is something you do not understand, please stop the lecturer and ask. The course (and the webbook) is self- contained, and there is nothing in it that you should take on faith. Reading: -------- Classical and Quantum Chaos --- www.nbi.dk/ChaosBook chapter 1: Overture appendix A (optional, for your pleasure only) Exercises: ---------- 1.1, 1.2 - due Tue Aug 28 at 12:25 (optional: points will be browny points) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Lecture 2: 09:35-10:55 Thu, Aug 21 in Howey S106 guest lecturer: Slaven Peles ------------------------------------------------------------------- Predrag Cvitanovic' 404/385-2502 office, Howey W501A 404/881-6006 home predrag.cvitanovic@physics.gatech.edu www.cns.gatech.edu/~predrag -------------------------------------------------------------------- PS - after waiting for an hour for buzzport to distribute this e-mail, I am going back to the old established technology - I suggest you subscribe yourself to chaos_course on http://www.cns.gatech.edu/~predrag/dis_lists.html