Graduate nonlinear dynamics/chaos studies

Olaf.of.Ísland

Is there anyone here studying chaos in graduate school? I have read a little on the subject and find it interesting. I cannot however, find many graduate schools offering studies in this field. (I know of only two, University of Maryland and Cornell) Also, what kind of real world applications does the field hold? I caught a show on National Geo about chaos theory being used in a model for controlling global weather but this is my very limited experience with the theory applied to "real life".

Any input/links would be great. Thanks in advance.

franznietzsche

Chaos theory applies to just about everything.

I remember one paper came out of Santa Cruz on fluid flow from a leaky faucet.

Weather patterns, fluid dynamics, flux vortices in type II superconductors (one of my professors is working on that one), laser diffraction patterns in gas layer, convection, the list goes on and on and on.

polyb

Think of it this way, if you have more than two things interacting, you have chaos. franz is right and unfortunately in most UG courses you only cover the easy linear/non-chaotic problems. See if any of your profs are doing a course in chaos theory, if not try to take it up as one of your research classes. Believe me, it is well worth it. My UG research project dealt with non-linear stochastics and I covered many topics of investigation: the 3-body problem, predator-prey models, stadium problem, the numerical computation and analysis of these models, and on and on. What was interesting was in the end it was found that if you took a line of neurons and added the right noise intensity to it the "firing" pattern became well behaved and demonstrated that stochastics(noise) could have an impact on the behavior of a non-linear system. NEAT STUFF!

So don't worry, chaos is everywhere and I am sure you wont have too look to hard to find a professor to guide you in the right direction. The subject is more "real world" than most of you're course work.