ordning i kaos, vetenskapens värld

Description:
Form and chaos, order and disorder are like rivals competing for supremacy in the vast arena that is our universe. Nature throws grotesque shapes and turbulent events at us and yet, within them, we strive to find evidence of patterns that we can classify and understand.
For centuries man has struggled to impose order on a perversely irregular world, and what he couldn't understand was often ignored. Now, armed with a new weapon, the computer, man is at last challenging the kingdom of chaos. Describing the shapes and forms of the world, where the only straight lines are the ones he has introduced. A new science is emerging from this challenge, a science which promises to describe and explain the infinite complexity of the busy world in which we live. It's a science which is producing a new geometry that offers an insight into the surprising paradox that there is order even within disorder. It's a science that is turning conventional thinking on its head. A science called... Chaos.

Jeff Goldblum made a half-arsed attempt at explaining chaos theory in "Jurassic Park", with his water drops and their "sensitive dependence on initial conditions". This fascinating documentary makes a much better job of it. Some of the pioneers of chaos theory help to explain, amongst other things, affine transformations, fractals, strange attractors and the butterfly effect.