The Secret Life of Chaos

I had a choice of viewing on the BBC digital channels last night. I could have watched ‘The Truth About Stag Weekends’ (or similarly titled) or a programme about the mathematical theory which underpins the whole universe. I had a quick peek at BBC3 and, although the Prague lap-dancing clubs looked interesting, watching the antics of a bunch of pissed-up blokes for an hour lost its appeal so I watched the thought-provoking programme on BBC4 — The Secret Life of Chaos. It started out with an ambitious premise — to explain what Douglas Adams might also have called the question of ‘life, the universe and everything’. The idea is that simple mathematical equations, pioneered by Alan Turing, could explain how patterns get created out of otherwise regular and identical material — such as in how embryos develop out of stem cells or how planets agglomerate out of dust particles. IMHO the programme seemed to stop short of actually explaining how this happened but they alluded to feedback loops, which I’ve studied on an Open University course (can’t remember which one now). Basically the idea is that very tiny differences in an environment are massively amplified using the feedback loop until something becomes very distinctive.  There are other theories too — such as how things like tree branches or rivers tend to repeat the same patter.

The end result was to argue that science and mathematics have explained away the big questions previously posed by religion: we don’t need to ask why we’re here,  the answer has been worked out.

The main point of the programme for me was to re-inforce the importance of simplicity. Keep things simple in all walks of life, especially things like software design, because the way even the simple things interact will lead to incredible complexity. Start complex and the whole enterprise will soon fail.

The presenter, Jim Al-Khalili, seemed pretty good. Apparently he’s a favourite guru of Melyvn Bragg on ‘In Our Time’ but we can forgive him that. His programme about the elements and the periodic table is on next week.