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Subject:
From:
John Martinson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 30 Nov 1996 10:29:00 PST
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A week ago there was a post interested in putting together
an exhibit on "change."   I lost track of who originally wanted
to information.

Phyllis K. Leffler and Joseph Brent, in their book PUBLIC AND
ACADEMIC HISTORY: A PHILOSOPHY AND PARADIGM (Krieger Pub. Co,
1990) discusses chaos and change.

For example, they say "During the last two decades a third and
equal controversial wave of innovation in physics has arrived
called "chaos."   Unlike particle physics which is involved with
"micro-events" far distant from human expereince, chaos is con-
cerned with the "macro-event" scale of everyday human life.  Its
grand question is how, in a universe governed by the Second Law
of Thermodynamics and moving relentlessly toward greater and
greater disorder, does order arise?  How does order come out of
chaos?"

They continued, "The idea underlying the image is that very
small differences can rapidly create large-scale effects--that
the physical world we recognize is characterized by extremely
sensitive dependence on initial conditions, so that tiny
changes in particular elements of a system could lead to
large and incalculable changes in overall behavior."  (pp. 72,
73).

Does this help?

john



John Martinson
[log in to unmask]
College Place/Walla Walla, WA

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