Chaos & Life

Program in Mathematics for Young Women

(entering 10th, 11th, or 12th grade)

"Observation always
involves theory"
Edwin Hubble

Lectures

Mondays from 5:45-6:45pm at the Rice campus. 5:15-5:45pm Group Discussion

January 14 Examples in finance and population growth
January 28 Love affairs
February 4 Orbits, fixed points, periodic points
February 11 Attraction and repulsion
February 18 Logistic map: analysis
March 4 What is Chaos?
March 18 The tent map
March 25 Explore: Fractals; self-similarity and fractals in nature
April 1 Play the chaos game
April 8 Fractal dimensional: surface is 2-dimensional, space has 3 dimensions, what is in between?
April 15 Lorenz water wheel
April 22 Chaos and stability: does nature prefer chaos?