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.