Richard Ernst Quotes

You get pseudo-order when you seek order; you only get a measure of order and control when you embrace randomness.

The current understanding was that it was impossible to predict how something would evolve because it was a very turbulent environment full of things interacting with each other.

I tried to develop some theories that took account of the uncertainty in the world and the complexity in the world.

We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you'd need infinite precision in order to predict future events. With sociopolitical or economic phenomena, we don't have anything like that.

Tinguely wasn't the first artist to work with machines. But others were more interested in precision, in what machines are meant to do. What made him different was the random element. He introduced the mechanical accident. He was always interested in the immaterial, in sound, smoke, speed, light, shadows.

Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.

The open web is full of spam, shady operators, and blatant falsehoods. Outside of a relatively small percentage of high quality sites, most of the web is chock full of popup ads and other interruptive come-ons. It's nearly impossible to find signal in that noise, and the web is in danger of being overrun by all that crap.

As I have said before, the daily machinations of the stock market are like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Probability is the very guide of life.

You're an entropic chaos factor

Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet.

Communications without intelligence is noise. Intelligence without communications is irrelevant.

Whatever way uncertainty is approached, probability is the only sound way to think about it.

In mathematics, as in physics, so much depends on chance, on a propitious moment.

They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could predict anything. That's been cherished scientific belief since Newton.' And?' Chaos theory throws it right out the window.

The grand assertion is that you must see the world through probability and that probability is the only guide you need.

We know the laws of trial and error, of large numbers and probabilities. We know that these laws are part of the mathematical and mechanical fabric of the universe, and that they are also at play in biological processes. But, in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge, are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance, to the exclusion of all other possibilities?

There is no such thing as a complete lack of order, only a design so vast it appears unrepetitive up close.

Life cannot be calculated. That's the big mistake our civilization made. We never accepted that randomness is not a mistake in the equation -- it is part of the equation.

Life is chaotic and unpredictable. If a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it could cause people at the opposite end of the globe to watch a Discovery Channel special on butterflies

Randomness works well in search sometimes better than humans.

Almost all life depends on probabilities.

The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth.

Chaos is perhaps at the bottom of everything.

The rattle of plastic keys reminds me of a squadron of butterflies failing to fight their way out of a paper bag.