three_trains_in_a_trenchcoat

Non-linear equations have entered the chat.

Chaos and non-linear dynamics were treated as a toy or curiosity for a pretty long time, probably in no small part due to the complexity involved. It’s almost certainly no accident that the first serious explorations of it after Poincare happen after the advent of computers.

So, one place where non-linear dynamics ended up having applications was in medicine. As I recall it from James Gleick’s book Chaos, inspired by recent discussion of Chaotic behavior in non-linear systems, medical doctors came up with the idea of electrical defibrillation- a way to reset the heart to a ground state and silence chaotic activity in lethal dysrhythmias that prevented the heart from functioning correctly.

Fractals also inspired some file compression algorithms, as I recall, and they also provide a useful means of estimating the perimeters of irregular shapes.

Also, there’s always work being done on turbulence, especially in the field of nuclear fusion as plasma turbulence seems to have a non-trivial impact on how efficiently a reactor can fuse plasma.

I’d like to read up on this if you have sources

I don’t see a reliable statistical difference myself. For my part, I’ve got ADHD that causes shit to simply stop existing the moment it’s sat down, and that ends up causing a lot of clutter

I did, while in high school and well before I realized I had ADHD and probably autism too, given the familiar behaviors in my diagnosed kids. That’s relevant because I had to work hard at learning social norms and conventions for stuff like interviews. Wal-mart offered me the job anyway, but I missed out on it because I missed the call and kept forgetting to check my voicemail.