Order, Flow, and Complexity:  A Precis on Cosmic Evolution -- Eric Chaisson

World Congress of the Systems Sciences,  at Toronto, July 16-19, 2000 

These participant's notes were created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker's presentation(s) and comments from the audience. These should not be viewed as official transcripts of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. These notes have been contributed by David Ing (daviding@ca.ibm.com) at the IBM Advanced Business Institute ( http://www.ibm.com/abi ).

Eric Chaisson, Director, Wright Center for Science Education, Tufts University, Professor of Physics, Associate of Harvard College Observatory

Astrophysicists:  the universe as my laboratory

A sad time for astrophysicists:

At the same time, also a golden age of biochemistry

These two interdisciplinary fields are changing the views of the world.

Two caveats:

Trying to build a cosmic heritage

Science:  Cosmology where life has a role

(Pairs of slides)

The arrow of time

Extend biological evolution into the cosmic evolution.

Graph:

Physicist trying to understand, will look for density and temperature

Energy densities are part of the key.

As the universe changes, can plot in a pair of diagrams

Can now plot:  ergs per second per gram.

Put these on the same page (and mix units)

Came from a conference on the origins of life, was the only physicists

Look a little more deeply (at 3 last slides)

Futther up the plot:  plants and animals

Implications to third level:  civilizations

A story about ourselves.

A cosmic framework to understand all things.

This is the bigger scheme of things.

Question from audience:  Using the term chaos in the old sese, if use the more modern sense , does it make a difference?

 

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