PHY100S - The Magic of Physics - Class 16 - Wednesday March 8, 2006

Pre-Class Quiz #6

The quiz given on Monday has been marked and loaded into STORM. The mean was 87.5%. Well done!

The following student numbers do not correspond to students taking this course:

994944980
991002005

Please be sure to check STORM to insure that your mark on the quiz is recorded correctly

Today's Class

We began with a failed demonstration from last time: I managed to get the fractint program going with the projector and demonstrated that the transition to chaos for the logistic map has many levels of bifurcation. Of course, it turns out to have an infinite number of bifurcations. The program is free and is available from http://spanky.triumf.ca/www/fractint/fractint.html.

We also discussed how in the transition to chaos for the Logistic system, an infinite number of bifurcations does actually get to values which are chaotic. I made an analogy to a series of stacking blocks. The figure to the right illustrates. Note that the top block's left side is to the right of the right side of the bottom block. Nonetheless this arrangement is stable and does not fall over. Technical Note: The top block extends 1/2 unit beyond the second block, which extends 1/4 unit beyond the third block, which extends 1/6 unit beyond the fourth block, which extends 1/8 unit beyond the fifth block, and so on.

We did not get to the Evolution and Sustaining LIfe on Earth section of the course notes. We will talk about this next class, and then begin Chapter 13.

Here is a link to today's Journal.