[HN Gopher] Chaos researchers can now predict perilous points of...
___________________________________________________________________
Chaos researchers can now predict perilous points of no return
Author : theafh
Score : 103 points
Date : 2022-09-15 14:19 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| fedeb95 wrote:
| Misleading title, second time this week. "Can" becomes a "could
| in the future" in the article.
| thenanante wrote:
| Using a chaotic system to predict a chaotic system.
| makach wrote:
| does that mean we can keep entropy in check?
| tbalsam wrote:
| Entropy is like Mundo -- it goes where it pleases.
| airstrike wrote:
| Reading this as I download patch 3.4 for WR, I believe in the
| simulation just a bit more
| golemotron wrote:
| I wonder whether this approach can be used to predict the
| behavior of social systems, given enough historical data.
| sroussey wrote:
| Phycohistory.
|
| ;)
| golemotron wrote:
| ..on ML
| c-linkage wrote:
| This sounds similar to work I did years ago to combine phase-
| space manifolds with a rule-based expert system to address
| problems diagnosing failures in mechanical systems exhibiting
| multi-modal operating regimes.
|
| Hopefully the researchers found a simpler computational method
| than I did in trying to mate those two systems together. :)
|
| What really caught my attention was the output of a probability
| curve showing how the system might operate in the never-before-
| seen regimes once the tipping point was reached. The ability to
| predict behavior outside the training set is a huge win. My
| method was only predictive while the the system operated in the
| training regime; outside that regime it was useless.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| The researchers appear to use reservoir computing approaches,
| which usually aren't terribly costly in terms of cpu cycles.
|
| I'm unsure about real life applications though because one of
| the quoted papers [0] only uses idealized strange attractors or
| whatever they're called -- only systems described by math.
|
| I'd be very interested to learn how the methods apply to real-
| world mechanical chaotic systems.
|
| This isn't my field of expertise at all, maybe someone has some
| experience with this?
|
| [0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.00521.pdf
| rch wrote:
| Abstract link for convenience:
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.00521
| uoaei wrote:
| Did your manifolds incorporate any notion of system dynamics,
| or was it a simpler curve-fitting procedure?
| c-linkage wrote:
| I computed a bounding volume in a hyper-dimensional space
| containing all sensor instruments on the system. The volume
| was constructed to encompass the entire sensor state space of
| many previously recorded "normal" operating periods (from
| startup through steady-state and shutdown).
|
| New operating regimes where then compared to the volume, and
| any excursions were considered diagnostically relevant
| conditions.
|
| The cool part (to me, at least) was that the direction of the
| vector as system state trajectory exited the volume could be
| put through a classifier that would effectively tell you what
| went wrong.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| TBH that doesn't sound too complicated or overengineered,
| and pretty performant too. Nice solution!
| Animats wrote:
| Actual paper:
| https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev...
|
| More useful than Quanta Magazine hype.
|
| The basic idea is that you've got a process with feedback that
| behaves like a chaotic attractor, moving around a lot but staying
| in a stable regime. Where's the edge of that regime?
|
| Here's a video of a leaky bucket waterwheel that exhibits chaotic
| behavior.[1] If all you had was a graph of rotational velocity,
| could you tell when it was about to reverse? Probably. Could you
| train a machine learning system to do that? Yes.
|
| It's not clear how general a result this is, but undoubtedly
| someone is already trying it on financial data.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A_rl-DAmUE
| mellavora wrote:
| yes, back in 1990-2000. See
| https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/40278/1/338823255.pd...
| though I was thinking of another paper which I couldn't find
| with a quick google.
|
| See also Mandelbrot, fractals and scaling in finance, 1997
| https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4757-2763-0
| pishpash wrote:
| Even looking at the title only you can tell this is from Quantum
| Mag. What is it about Quantum Mag that produces these
| pseudoscientific-sounding titles (regardless of content)?
| FunnyBadger wrote:
| I call BS on this. It would require negating entropy.
| suoduandao2 wrote:
| Our current understanding of entropy is probably about as
| accurate as Newton's understanding of gravity, not something we
| want to get dogmatic about.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-15 23:01 UTC)