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Old 23-04-2011, 10:28 PM
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Robh (Rob)
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Blue Mountains, Australia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS View Post

The main areas where Chaos plays a role according to Pfenniger are:
- Newtonian dynamics
- Orbit description.
- Phase space fluid description.
- N-body description.
- The complex physics of baryons
- The dynamics of non-baryonic matter.
Interesting. A chaos-based simulation has to evolve with dynamical interactions on many levels. In fact, any model that ignores key influences is going to lead to misleading results.
This is all going to take an extraordinary amount of computer memory and processing capability considering the N-body description alone involves around 10^12 stars over an enormous amount of simulated time. With so many interconnected processes, one would have to question the reliability of any conclusions deduced by current simulations. The effects of dark matter is yet surely uncertain.
My main bone of contention is that a simulation that reproduces what we see today is not necessarily based on an accurate hypothesis. If B is true and A implies B, it does not mean A is true. For example: "the numbers 3 and 4 are prime" implies "3 is prime", the latter is true but the former is not.
A simulation must not only show what we see to be true but predict something that is not yet seen to be true to add credibility to its assumptions. Example, some unknown follow on from newer galaxies through to older ones. A process akin to that of a classical scientific theory.

Regards, Rob

Last edited by Robh; 23-04-2011 at 11:00 PM.
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