Professor tapped to explain complex theory on DVD
When Steven Strogatz explains chaos theory to a lay audience, he picks up a head of broccoli. The applied math professor uses the vegetable as an example of a fractal—a geometric structure in which the constituent parts are an exact replica of the larger object. Chaos theory, Strogatz explains, is not only about how small disturbances can lead to massive unpredictability, but also about discovering order and patterns within complex systems.
The broccoli example and other lessons have been collected on Chaos, a new DVD comprising two dozen of Strogatz's half-hour lectures on chaos theory. It was produced by the Teaching Company, a Virginia-based firm that offers prerecorded adult-education courses taught by college professors whom it has identified as being in the top 1 percent of their field based on teaching awards, evaluations, and other sources. Strogatz, the first Cornell professor tapped by the company, uses some 150 visuals to make chaos theory accessible to people with little background in science or math. Chaos, he explains, is most commonly associated with the "butterfly effect"—the concept that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world could create a tornado elsewhere on the globe—but it also manifests itself everywhere from the stock market to heart arrhythmias. "There are so many complicated systems in the world that traditional science has a lot of trouble making sense of, and especially making predictions about," says Strogatz. "Chaos theory gives us hope of understanding things that previously seemed hopeless, irregular, and unpredictable."
— Jamie Leonard '09