Hello and welcome to the complexity explorer course
Introduction to dynamic systems and chaos.
I'm Dave Feldman.
I teach physics and math
at college of the Atlantic at Bar Harbor, Maine
I'm a member of the complexity explorer team.
Thanks for signing up for the course
and thanks for stopping by to check this out.
The goal for this class is to give you a solid
grounded introduction to the key ideas
and themes that emerge
from the study of dynamical systems and chaos.
For example, at the end of this class you will know
exactly what the butterfly effect is
what strange attractors are
and how to apply these ideas
to areas of your interest.
We will do just enough math in this course
so that we can talk about these ideas
in a concrete and grounded way.
This class is structured as followed:
The first part of the course, units 1 and 2,
will be introductions to the two dynamical systems.
Two types of dynamical systems that we will study
iterated functions and then differential equations.
The second part of the courses units 3 to 8, 3 and 9
covers the main material of the course.
Here you will learn about chaos and the butterfly effect
bifications, universality, phase space, strange attractors
and pattern forming systems.
Then, in the last part of the course.
I will conclude and try to draw together and draw out
some of the key themes.
And, I will also conduct interviews of other scientists
and mathematicians,
who have studied and done work in dynamical systems.
There are a few more things I would like to mention
before we get started.
First, my experience has been that units 1 and 2
can be a little challenging in some ways.
For some of you the material may seem to basic.
For others it may seem a little too hard.
And it may even be in a certain sense both at the same time
and that we will be covering
some unfamiliar terms but it may seem repetitious.
Like we aren't going very fast
or covering interesting material yet.
My experience though teaching the course
both online and here at College of the Atlantic
is that the time we spend in units 1 and 2
are well worth it.
When we make it through
we will all more or less be in the same place.
Even though we have different background of experiences
and then we will be able to go
into the main course and material
and do some really fun and fascinating stuff.
So if it a seem a little basic
don't wory it will get more complex soon.
And if it seems a little too hard,
don't worry you'll make it just fine.
And if you have questions,
or other thing you'd like more explanation about,
you can ask questions on the course form
and either I can respond .
or one of the other course participants respond
so stick with it through units 1 and 2.
I want to say a little more about
the math background you need for this course.
The only math I will really relying on is pretty basic algebra
basic notion of a function
and some very basic algebraic manipulation
and then the very idea of the graph of a function
we won't be doing very complicated algebra of sorts
so if you are worried about your math background don't be.
You will be fine.
And you can always get help on the discussion
form if you need it.
If you have a more extensive math background.
perhaps you've taken calculus or differential equations
maybe physics or engineering classes.
I still think you will get alot out of this class.
My experience has been the type of math we do
in dynamical systems is often not taught in traditional classes.
and compliments with really well
the analytic and linear approaches
you might have gotten in your other classes
but a few logistical things to end up.
Posted today are units 1 and 2.
So as I said before this is sort of the bumpy
introductory part of the course
where we are getting everyone synchronized
as to the material
and so two units are posted at once.
You can go through these units quickly
some of you will want to do it right away
or you can go through them slowly
The course is self paced.
So you can take the quizzes and the tests
at the end of the unit at any time.
So, two units are up.
Most weeks I will just be posting one unit
and I will be posting these on Monday morning.
And here I will be posting these on the east coast of the US.
The next video in the sequence is by Melanie Mitchell
The director of the complexity explorer project
And she will tell you a little bit
about how to use the site
the different elements
How to find the discussion forum.
How to take the quizzes
and so on.
If you have taken the complexity explorer class before
You can probably skip that video
and go right into the next video
in this unit which I think is on
a basic introduction to functions.
So again
Welcome to the course
I'm glad you are signed up
I'm really looking forward to teaching it
and I hope you have fun
and learn alot.