Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!garfield!leif!andrew
From: andrew@kean.mun.ca
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Re: Touching a "hot" connector
Message-ID: <10897@kean.mun.ca>
Date: 10 Aug 89 16:09:09 GMT
References: <427@edai.ed.ac.uk> <880007@hpmtlx.HP.COM> <31069@coherent.com>
Organization: Computing Services, Memorial University
Lines: 26

In article <31069@coherent.com>, dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes:
> If you draw up a three-dimensional graph (X = starting phase, Y =
> current applied, Z = resulting phase), you'll find that there is an
> inescapable singularity in the Z-axis values... this is a topological
> necessity.  In effect, for one certain X (starting phase) and one
> certain Y (current), the resulting phase is indeterminate.
> 
> This phenomenon exists in many sort of perturbable phase oscillators
> (circadian rhythms, etc.).  Different systems display the singularity in
> different ways.  In some systems, the singularity is a repelling
> point... the system "slides" back into stable behavior at some
> unpredictable point in its cycle.  In other systems, the singularity is
> an attracting point... the oscillator "hangs up" and begins exhibiting
> nonregular behavior.  The heartbeat-cycle is of the latter sort; if the
> oscillator is disrupted, the heart fibrillates.


Of course.  'Tis Chaos (or Nonlinear Dynamics for you stickywigs).


I remember reading that one of the first uses of chaos research in biology was 
to make mosquitos insomniac by using flashes of light to turn their internal 
sleep/wake clocks into chaotic behavior.


-Andrew.