Middlebury

PHYS 0104

Chaos Complexity and Self-Org.

Chaos, Complexity, and Self-Organization
A paradigm shift has occurred throughout the natural sciences in recent years. Our understanding of the strict determinism of the Newtonian world-view has been revised in surprising and fruitful new ways, providing an outlook that emphasizes the fundamental significance of open, evolving systems. This course explores recent work on chaos, fractals, complexity, and self-organization. Ideas from these fields suggest new ways of thinking about life and mind, and how they arise as emergent phenomena from a physical world of dead and mindless fundamental particles interacting through aimless fundamental forces. We will also explore the influence of these basic ideas on the humanities and the social sciences. Although the course is largely nonmathematical, students should be willing to use elementary high school algebra. 3 hrs. lect.
Subject:
Physics
Department:
Physics
Division:
Natural Sciences
Requirements Fulfilled:
DED SCI
Equivalent Courses:
FYSE 1282 *

Sections in Winter 2010

Winter 2010

PHYS0104A-W10 Lecture (Dunham)