Psychologist George Miller found 2.5 bits to be an approximate limit for a certain type of channel capacity. In Watership Down, Richard Adams coined the term "hrair," referring to a maximum countable number, which for rabbits was four. IT guru Ed Yourdon defined hrair for a computer programmer at between five and nine.
Each of these experts attempts to quantify the optimal number of relationships.
The best explanation of why most humans have two or three children may lie in what Physicist Mitchell Feigenbaum discovered: chaotic behavior tends to occur when a certain parameter, called the first Feigenbaum constant, is approximately four and two-thirds, about the average human family size.
Could it be that the optimal number of relationships occurs when chaos is maximized? How could we ever make order out of that?
Showing posts with label chaos theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chaos theory. Show all posts
Friday, November 23, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Complexity and the moon
Japan plans to land a man on the moon by 2025. A big first step is an unmanned moon launch scheduled for this week.
Technology is a funny thing. Back in 1961 when President Kennedy wanted to land a man on the moon it took eight years. At that time electronic computers had only been around for 15 years or so. With all the whiz-bang power, graphics, and communications capabilities of today’s computers, it’s going to take 18 years or ten years longer than the first time. How did that happen?
It turns out that a group of mathematicians and scientists believe the explanation could be found in chaos theory. Harvard Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam says, “The increase in complexity is directly related to sweeping changes in the structure and dynamics of human civilization: both the increasing interdependence of the global economic and social system, and the instabilities of dictatorships, communism, and corporate hierarchies.” He didn’t leave anyone out, did he?
So what’s next for humans? Bar-Yam says one future human organizational structure might be a fully networked system where hierarchical structures are unimportant.
Sounds good. No boss, and maybe we could even get back to the moon ten years sooner.
Technology is a funny thing. Back in 1961 when President Kennedy wanted to land a man on the moon it took eight years. At that time electronic computers had only been around for 15 years or so. With all the whiz-bang power, graphics, and communications capabilities of today’s computers, it’s going to take 18 years or ten years longer than the first time. How did that happen?
It turns out that a group of mathematicians and scientists believe the explanation could be found in chaos theory. Harvard Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam says, “The increase in complexity is directly related to sweeping changes in the structure and dynamics of human civilization: both the increasing interdependence of the global economic and social system, and the instabilities of dictatorships, communism, and corporate hierarchies.” He didn’t leave anyone out, did he?
So what’s next for humans? Bar-Yam says one future human organizational structure might be a fully networked system where hierarchical structures are unimportant.
Sounds good. No boss, and maybe we could even get back to the moon ten years sooner.
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