The Secret Life of Chaos is an award-winning documentary film made by Furnace and presented by Jim Al-Khalili (and here). It was originally broadcast by the BBC in 2010.
It is a superb introduction to chaos theory complete with a great soundtrack of minimalist music.
It covers some of the usual chaos suspects such as Edward Lorenz and the Butterfly Effect; and Benoit Mandelbrot and fractals. However, it also explores several other diverse and unexpected topics.
Alan Turing (and here) is best known for his roles in helping to invent the computer and to decode Nazi messages at Bletchley Park during World War II. However, it is his work on pattern formation in biology which is discussed here.
Other topics covered include Boris Belousov’s work on the B-Z reaction in chemistry and Robert May’s work on the prediction of population sizes in groups of animals.
Perhaps most interesting is the inclusion of the study of evolution in virtual worlds, complete with the implication that natural evolution works in a similar way. Torsten Reil from the company NaturalMotion discusses the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques to simulate the development of human skills such as walking over several generations of virtual evolution.
Other contributors include Andrew Hodges, Ian Stewart and Andrea Sella.
Unfortunately, the programme is not currently available on iPlayer or DVD. Watch two short official excerpts from the BBC below. Also, a TED talk from 2003 by Torsten Reil explaining his work in more detail.
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