Oct 8, 2026 12:48 AM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1146934
INTRO: Predicting a system’s final outcome from its initial state is the ultimate goal for many physicists. In certain complex systems, however, this goal is thwarted by chaos, where even the subtlest tweaks of the initial state can lead to completely different fates, making the system almost impossible to predict.
In research published in the journal Nature Communications, Illinois physicists have developed a model showing that unpredictability can also arise in nonchaotic systems. Despite being fully deterministic, the team’s model resists computational attempts to predict its final state based on its initial configuration. Remarkably, however, the scientists find the model’s dynamics gives rise to topological structure that can eventually be used as a reliable predictor of final fate, demonstrating that predictability itself can emerge over time.
Unpredictability in deterministic systems. Push a block of known mass with a known force. As any physics student knows, the block’s initial position allows us to predict its final position at some specified time. In deterministic systems such as this one, the final outcome is predetermined by the initial configuration and the rules governing its evolution through time.
In practice, however, things aren’t always so simple. In chaotic deterministic systems, for instance, although the governing rules may be known exactly, minuscule deviations in the systems’ initial configurations can become magnified, leading to different final states than one might have expected.
But it seems chaos isn’t the only source of unpredictability, an idea Illinois Physics Professor Hyun Youk stumbled across some years back... (MORE - no ads)
INTRO: Predicting a system’s final outcome from its initial state is the ultimate goal for many physicists. In certain complex systems, however, this goal is thwarted by chaos, where even the subtlest tweaks of the initial state can lead to completely different fates, making the system almost impossible to predict.
In research published in the journal Nature Communications, Illinois physicists have developed a model showing that unpredictability can also arise in nonchaotic systems. Despite being fully deterministic, the team’s model resists computational attempts to predict its final state based on its initial configuration. Remarkably, however, the scientists find the model’s dynamics gives rise to topological structure that can eventually be used as a reliable predictor of final fate, demonstrating that predictability itself can emerge over time.
Unpredictability in deterministic systems. Push a block of known mass with a known force. As any physics student knows, the block’s initial position allows us to predict its final position at some specified time. In deterministic systems such as this one, the final outcome is predetermined by the initial configuration and the rules governing its evolution through time.
In practice, however, things aren’t always so simple. In chaotic deterministic systems, for instance, although the governing rules may be known exactly, minuscule deviations in the systems’ initial configurations can become magnified, leading to different final states than one might have expected.
But it seems chaos isn’t the only source of unpredictability, an idea Illinois Physics Professor Hyun Youk stumbled across some years back... (MORE - no ads)
