Organizing Friam-ABQ / New Chaos Club PLAIN TEXT

[Mike Oliker]

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chaos club
friam-abq
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ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING
WHEN:    THURSDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2005 -- ONE WEEK
WHERE:    MISSION RESEARCH CONFERENCE ROOM (directions below)
WHAT:    Meeting to Organize FRIAM-ABQ/Chaos Club  
                    (AGENDA and COURSE SYLLABI BELOW)
FOOD:    Pizza, if you let me know you want some, we'll split costs.  Coffee
will be available, soda from vending machines.
RSVP :    Please let me know if you are coming so we can be sure to have
enough chairs, etc.
TO JOIN LISTSERV: to subscribe send an email to [hidden email] with
the body text (NOT Subject line) "subscribe friam-abq".  To unsubscribe send
an email to the same address saying "unsubscribe friam-abq".

DIRECTIONS
ATK Mission Research Corporation
5401 Indian School Rd NE, Suite 100
Take I-40 to San Mateo South.  Immediate right onto Indian School, ATK/MRC
is on the right in two short blocks.  This is the SE corner of the office
complex between the YMCA and the
Church of Christ. The main entrance is at 5001 Indian School Rd, which is
on the SW corner of the complex.
Map on Google:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=5001%20Indian%20School%20Rd%20NE%20in%20Albuqu
erque%2C%20NM&ll=35.102051%2C-106.588693&spn=0.062744%2C0.116751
Map as .gif image is also attached.

>From Mike Kruchoski our ATK/MRC sponsor:
A sign will be posted at the door, giving the conference room number
(768-7804) and my cell phone number (480-5000). However, the conference
room is just inside the door, so we should be able to hear anyone knocking
if he/she doesn't have a cell phone. As a last resort, the receptionist at
our main entrance can call or page me. I will handle visitor badges and
sign-in.  Visit requests are not required.

AGENDA (such as it is)

Club Issues that I'm aware of:
WHAT ARE PEOPLE INTERESTED IN?
WHEN, WHERE, HOW LONG TO MEET
HOW TO STRUCTURE MEETINGS
    -Feeling free to explore things new to us all
    -All Courselike?
    -Half structured, half freeform?
    -Guest Speakers (even if they're members)?
    -Will we read books (online or printed) together?
COURSE
    -Curriculum
    -Who will present
    -How technical?
    -Cover topics rapidly, and then go back for depth after course
or Cover topics slowly, and pursue each in some depth
CHAOS CLUB/FRIAM MERGER
    -This seems to be mainly a matter of two kinds of mailing lists,
which is manageable.
    -We may find we end up having more and less technical events, since
Chaos Club was less technical
WEBSITE
    -Chaos Club has a website, which is not being actively managed.
    -It would be great to find someone new to manage this,
    -Make use of it for posting images and things the listserv won't
handle.
    -Perhaps we can use Blog technology here, to make it something
everyone can contribute to.
    -One thing I'd like to see us do is generate and keep track of
interesting questions.
    -Imagine a site with a network of questions, where clicking on a
question leads you to an online discussion of that topic.

-Mike Oliker

SYLLABI
USED FOR THE HONORS UNDERGRADUATE CLASS "CHAOS, FRACTALS, AND COMPLEXITY"

When we did the course with Peter Shive in Chaos Club, we had people bring
their laptops so we could play with the simulations, mandelbrot zooms, etc.
He taught us the same course he taught honors undergrads at UNM.

We may want to take our time with this, perhaps have one lecture style
meeting a month, with two less formal side meetings -- one for people who
are comfortable with math and want to go fast and deep in pursuing the math,
and those less comfortable with math who want to pursue the ideas in words,
and catch up on the math.

These syllabi are probably dated already. What topics are missing that you
would like to see included? I would add more on neural networks, since they
have seen a lot of application. I am also interested in Language and
Networks of Conversation and Memes.
Please note, too, that I am not expert in a lot of the things I brought up
in my syllabus, meaning to open the doors to discussion. With our more
technical audience,
-Mike Oliker

PETER SHIVE'S SYLLABUS
Peter put together a detailed outline of a twelve meeting (2.5 hours
each) semester course. I see this as food for thought at our Monday meeting.
Interested folks could contemplate the different topics, lobby for changes,
and volunteer to moderate areas which they feel comfortable leading.
1) Introduction to fractals, space, scale, dimension, "size", why Euclidean
geometry fails, zooms into the Mandelbrot set and into landscapes
2) Graphic fractals, Koch curve, Sierpinski triangle, etc, fractal
dimension, coastlines and lungs
3) Numeric fractals, imaginary and complex numbers, Mandelbrot set, more
zooms (video)
4) Making pictures, Barnsley's scheme (affine transformation and collage
approach), fractal computer lab
5) Introduction to chaos, modeling, laws for change, iteration, prediction,
geometric fish and stupidity
6) Correcting stupidity, logistic fish, what chaos looks like, attractors,
strange attractors, fish computer lab
7) Determinism vs the butterfly effect, where chaos really comes from,
sensitive dependence computer lab
8) 2-D systems, war, epidemics, fish and sharks, 2-D computer lab
9) Dripping water faucetts and hearts, the arms race, chaos video
10) Introduction to complexity, emergent behavior, statistics of complex
systems, neural networks and cellular automata
11) Conway's Game of Life, cellular automaton computer lab, cellular
automaton video
12) Complexity video, philosophical implications of chaos, fractals and
complexity

MIKE OLIKER'S SYLLABUS
 (original is attached, with more columns and detail)
A new field of research has been arising for the last several years, in many
diverse disciplines. It wants to say something useful about the complex
phenomena that arise when many interconnected nonlinear elements interact.
The intelligence you are using to read this paragraph is just such a
phenomenon. So are the origin and evolution of life, the behavior of markets
and societies, and the wind in the trees. With computers we can build
fantastically simplified versions of such things, and still find a
surprising richness of behavior, and often startling beauty.

In this course we will become familiar with the many currents of this still
developing field. We will explore simulated worlds, searching together for
new insights. We will take familiar topics and cast them in a new light. We
will develop facility in a challenging area.
 DESCRIPTION                  ELEMENTS
1. Overview             Complexity, Linear/Nonlinear, Emergence
2. Chaos and Fractals   Chaos: Extreme Sensitivity to
                              Initial Conditions,  Scale,
                              Fractional Dimension, Affine Transformations
3. Fractals             Mandelbrot Sets, Julia Sets
4. Chaos                      Attractors, Strange Attractors,
                              Liaponov Exponent, Bifurcation,
                              Feigenbaum's Constant
5. Cellular Automata    The Game of Life  Wolfram Classes,
                              Robust, Adaptive, Parallel
6. Self Organized Criticality Critical Behavior, Self Organization
7. Agent Based Modeling:Prisoner's Dilemma, Complex Adaptive Systems,
                              Evolution of Cooperation, Simulated Worlds,
                              Adaptation
8. Genetic Algorithms   Swarms, Deeper into Cellular Automata
                              and their Evolution
9. Kauffman 1           Phase Transition, Autocatalytic Sets,
                              Autonomous Agents
10. Kauffman 2          Gene Regulatory Networks, Coevolution,
                              Self Organization
11. Review and Apply    Darwinian Evolution, At Home in the Universe?,
                              Adam Smith's Invisible hand,
                              Holons and Holarchy, Parkinson's Laws,
                              Peter's Principle, Democracy
 

[Parks, Raymond]

Mike Oliker wrote:

> chaos club
> friam-abq
> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
> ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING
> WHEN:    THURSDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2005 -- ONE WEEK

   Um, what time?

--
Ray Parks                   [hidden email]
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