Re: Just when you thought the religious right couldn't get any sillier (or scarier)

I am going to have just a little astonomical interest in this posting.
The classic statement on chaos, and also of the causation of
hurricanes, is that they are caused by butterflys in Japan. They could
be caused by gays (and straights) heaving up and down.

What is chaos. Imagine you are trying to bacance a pencil on its point,
theoretically you can but if you get the pivot point right to even 100
places of decimals it will still fall in an unpredictable direction. We
can look at a more complicated dynamical system and construct equations
in matrix form. If we then proceed to compute the modes of vibration we
will find we get some positive eigenvalues and some negative. This
means that we have an eigenvalue that will grow exponentially one it is
present to even the smallest extent.

Meterology and fluid flow in general is about unstable systems. If we
know an unstable system to a high degree of accuracy we can make
predictions and small forces can be used to control the situation.

Cassini first went to Venus, to Venus again, then back to Earth to
Jupiter and finally on to Saturn. This is beacuse it did no have enough
energy to reach Saturn on a simple launch from Earth. VVEJS is unstable
in the extreme. Theoretically you can launch from Earth making no
corrections, but you would need precision of less than a micron per
second. In fact rocket power of a few m/s is needed for mid course
corrections. Cassini is thus an example of chaos control. Can we extend
this principle?

Yes we know that the couse correction needed in Earth crossing
asteroids depends on an early determination of the orbit. 1mm per sec
precision and that is what you will need to ensure missing Earth.

Suppose we use a space based laster to measure wind speeds oner a large
area to round about 1mm per sec. On feeding those into a supercomputer
we have the beginnings of a hurricane. If we now make a small
modification. Say we make an oil slick (refined oil with controlled
evaporation conditions) we now have the beginnings of an effective
control mechanism.

I would also like to query whether the Baptist, so called, Church is
Christian. Christ Himselved expressly denied that there was any
connection. Followers of Christ should listen to what He said.

.