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chaos

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chaos

 

  3  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Chaos  \Cha"os\  (k[=a]"[o^]s),  n.  [L.  chaos  chaos  (in  senses  1  & 
  2),  Gr  cha`os,  fr  cha`inein  (root  cha)  to  yawn,  to  gape,  to 
  open  widely.  Cf  {Chasm}.] 
  1.  An  empty,  immeasurable  space;  a  yawning  chasm.  [Archaic] 
 
  Between  us  and  there  is  fixed  a  great  chaos.  --Luke 
  xvi.  26 
  (Rhemish 
  Trans.). 
 
  2.  The  confused,  unorganized  condition  or  mass  of  matter 
  before  the  creation  of  distinct  and  orderly  forms. 
 
  3.  Any  confused  or  disordered  collection  or  state  of  things 
  a  confused  mixture;  confusion;  disorder. 
 
  From  WordNet  r  1.6  [wn]: 
 
  chaos 
  n  1:  a  state  of  extreme  confusion  and  disorder  [syn:  {pandemonium}, 
  {bedlam},  {topsy-turvydom},  {topsy-turvyness}] 
  2:  the  formless  and  disordered  state  of  matter  before  the 
  creation  of  the  cosmos 
  3:  (Greek  mythology)  the  most  ancient  of  gods;  the 
  personification  of  the  infinity  of  space  preceding 
  creation  of  the  universe  [syn:  {Chaos}] 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  chaos 
 
  A  property  of  some  non-linear  dynamic  systems  which  exhibit 
  sensitive  dependence  on  initial  conditions.  This  means  that 
  there  are  initial  states  which  evolve  within  some  finite  time 
  to  states  whose  separation  in  one  or  more  dimensions  of  state 
  space  depends,  in  an  average  sense  exponentially  on  their 
  initial  separation.  Such  systems  may  still  be  completely 
  {deterministic}  in  that  any  future  state  of  the  system  depends 
  only  on  the  initial  conditions  and  the  equations  describing 
  the  change  of  the  system  with  time.  It  may  however,  require 
  arbitrarily  high  precision  to  actually  calculate  a  future 
  state  to  within  some  finite  precision. 
 
  ["On  defining  chaos",  R.  Glynn  Holt 
    and  D.  Lynn  Holt 
  . 
  {(ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/ippe/preprints/Phil_of_Science/Holt_and_Holt.On_Defining_Chaos)}] 
 
  Fixed  precision  {floating-point}  arithmetic,  as  used  by  most 
  computers,  may  actually  introduce  chaotic  dependence  on 
  initial  conditions  due  to  the  accumulation  of  rounding  errors 
  (which  constitutes  a  non-linear  system). 
 
  (1995-02-07)




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