Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory Office of Science NEWTON's Homepage NEWTON's Homepage
NEWTON, Ask A Scientist!
NEWTON Home Page NEWTON Teachers Visit Our Archives Ask A Question How To Ask A Question Question of the Week Our Expert Scientists Volunteer at NEWTON! Frequently Asked Questions Referencing NEWTON About NEWTON About Ask A Scientist Education At Argonne Space uses of CHAOS Theory 
Name: Unknown
Status: N/A
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: Around 1993
Question:
I have a question to anyone who knows what I am talking about. What applications has the CHAOS theory been applied to? I am especially interested in the space shuttle, satellites etc. If you know anything, please leave a personal letter to elmo in Australia. Thanks.


Replies:
Chaos theory has been applied in just about every field you can think of, from aerospace engineering to zoology. My Ph.D. thesis focused on the use of chaos theory to develop a reaction rate theory. Although, I do not specifically know of any applications of chaos theory to the space shuttle, I have heard of some work in nonrigid body dynamics which used ideas from the chaos theory. Also, the originator of the field, Henri Poincare (a French mathematical physicist who published several fundamental manuscripts on the subject in the late 1800's) was interested in celestial mechanics, and a lot of the work in chaos theory was originally motivated by this field. Hope you have found this interesting, elmo! I recommend Gleick's book Chaos to all who are interested in this subject.

Topper


Click here to return to the Mathematics Archives

NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators, sponsored and operated by Argonne National Laboratory's Educational Programs, Andrew Skipor, Ph.D., Head of Educational Programs.

For assistance with NEWTON contact a System Operator (help@newton.dep.anl.gov), or at Argonne's Educational Programs

NEWTON AND ASK A SCIENTIST
Educational Programs
Building 360
9700 S. Cass Ave.
Argonne, Illinois
60439-4845, USA
Update: June 2012
Weclome To Newton

Argonne National Laboratory