Chapter 2: Revolution

The next chapter discusses the continuous path of chaos, and the difficulties of communicating new ideas to skeptical scientists. As more people were involved in exploring the new science, scientists were willing to test and apply the theory to other applications in the world.

One tool that scientists used to apply the new science was a pendulum, which can be applied to many real life situations. Galileo observed a church lampswaying back and fourth, and Christian Huygens used the pendulum as a way of timekeeping. Foucault, the Pantheon of Paris, used a pendulum to demonstrate the earth’s rotation. Also,

 every clock, until the era of 

the vibrating quartz, relied on a pendulum. Basic electronic circuits are described by the same equations that describe a swinging pendul

um. Galileo saw regularity in the pendulum, and contended that a pendulum not only keeps precise time, but keeps the same time no matter h

ow wide the angle of its swing. In other words, a wide-swinging pendulum has farther to travel, but happens to travel that much faster.  Galileo’s theory was so convincing, that it is still taught in some physics books, but it is not correct, as was proved later on. The consistency Galileo saw was only an approximation. The changing angle creates equations that are slightly nonlinear. At low amplitudes, the error is almost nonexistent, but as the amplitude increases, the error margin increases. In his experiments, Galileo disregarded friction and air resistance, which play a role in the motion of a pendulum. For example, when looking at a playground swing, the swing accelerates on its way down, and decelerates on its way up, while losing some speed to friction. As the swing gets a push from behind, it accelerates and 

eventually settles back into steady motion. There is friction acting on the swing pulling it down. Also, it can be observed that on a swing as the angle decreases, the swing slows down and goes back and fourth less times that when is at a higher angle.

 

The second part of chapter one looks at the mystery of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, which is a vast, chaotic, swirlig oval. Astronomers noticed a blemish on the planet, and there were multi

ple theories on what the coloration was. Here are a few examples:

The Lava Flow theory: Scientists imagined a huge oval lake of molten lava flowing out of a volcano.

The New Moon Theory: A German Scientist suggested that the spot was a new moon emerging from the planet’s surface.

The Egg Theory: Some scientists thought the spot was a solid body floating in the atmosphere just like an egg floats in water

When the Voyager orbited in 1978, astronomers saw the spot as a hurricane-like system. However, it possessed some characteristics that were unlike a hurricane.

The final conclusion was that The Great Red Spot was a great anti-cyclonic storm. As hot gases on Jupiter’s atmosphere swirl, and cooler gas falls through the atmosphere, the Corolis effect causes the region to start swirling. These small swirling storms move around and eventually come together, combining their energies and forming the Great Red Spot. The Great Red Spot persists over time because there is no solid ground to create frictions, and slow down the storms. The chaotic flow created takes up much energy, and although the spot itself is a self-organizing system, created by the same factors that create he unpredictable twists, it is stable chaos. It is very interesting how the storm has been going on for over 40 years. I wonder when it will finally die 

down. And will it ever die down?