You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

Luke Weiger lweiger at umich.edu
Thu Apr 11 10:00:18 PDT 2002



> No, metereology is nothing but complicated physics and chemistry. It's a
> totally deterministic system.

My deterministic intuitions make me inclined to agree. But people way smarter than I am have told me that we can't know whether or not every physical event has a determinate cause.


> But like most such systems that involve more
> than a few entities, it is too hopelessly complicated to calculate.

Any more concise way of saying "too hopelessly complicated to calculate"? The mathemeticians have already appropriated "chaos" (defined in the dictionary as "the inherent unpredictability in the behavior of a natural system") and given it a slightly different meaning.

-- Luke


> jks
>
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