Complex system: Difference between revisions

You ''cannot'' brute-force compute a [[wicked problem]], like catching a ball,<ref>Ohh, but catching a ball isn’t a wicked problem! I hear you cry. For hard-determinist, reductionist types maybe, but if you have ever pondered the odd lack of tenured physics professors in the national cricket team you may, like the [[JC]] beg to differ. The [[JC]]’s celebrated experiments with [[the proverbial crisp packet in St Mark’s Square]] may help explain.</ref> ''but you can still catch a ball''. Don’t think, “punch all the variables into a machine and run round to the resulting co-ordinate and stick your hand out.”  You don’t have nearly enough information to even make the calculation. Instead, just run towards the damn thing, watching it, adjusting as you go.<ref>A study a while back found professional baseball players, while ''excellent'' at catching moving balls they were allowed to run towards, had a lot more trouble predicting where those balls would land when made to stand still.</ref>

Calculating an exact parabola from initial conditions — even if you have good approximations of the necessary data inputs to hand, which you won’t — will give you a rough vector and distance, but the range of potential trajectories will be far too great to to ever actually catch the ball. Likewise, the prediction of rain in [[Lissingdown]] a month in advance is is highly speculative: we may have average rainfall data, but as to whether it will rain or not at a given moment, who can say?