Almost all the mathematics, science and technology in our schools come from a prescriptive box. Students expect a clearly defined problem, a logical analysis, and clear solution. What’s more, so do the academic staff and the education system. This creates mindsets that think our universe is full of problems with solutions, and that there is only a small proportion of problems
that we are still trying to solve. You don’t have to be out of school and into industry for very long to realize our universe is not a well-behaved place and, in fact, the converse is true.
By looking at the night sky and observing clusters of constellations, or watching the cataclysmic events on our own planet, we can quickly see that chaos is actually the natural mode rather than the exception. Natural disasters come in clusters, as do births, deaths, marriages, car accidents, and electrical appliance failures in our homes. There is also ample evidence to
suggest that Mother Nature’s natural mode is also chaotic. The boom/bust cycles in economies that politicians seek to smooth are also symptomatic of non-linear mechanisms. Some of the chaotic mechanisms are easy to understand, but many are not. The reality is that we have very little appreciation of the true magnitude and impact of non-linear systems.
