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> Asimov was a chemist and so was unlikely to be familiar with that work. The premise is true but the conclusion does not follow. Asimov was one of the most
by kwhitefoot 4y ago
> Asimov was a chemist and so was unlikely to be familiar with that work.
The premise is true but the conclusion does not follow. Asimov was one of the most prolific authors of popular science books including astronomy, cosmology, physics, etc. It's entirely plausible that he was familiar with chaos.
- btilly 4y agoWhen the book was written in 1941, he was a graduate student. His attempts to popularize science were many years in the future. Lorenz's work with chaos and powerful enough computers to enable it were still 20 years in the future. Terms such as "the butterfly effect" did not get introduced for another decade. It was unlikely that he was unfamiliar with chaos. Doubly so given that the first prediction of what we now call chaos theory is that we won't see the periodic behavior that is a fundamental premise of the story.