chaos

4 definitions found

chaos - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Chaos \Cha"os\ (k[=a]"[o^]s), n. [L. chaos chaos (in senses 1 &
     2), Gr. cha`os, fr. cha`inein (root cha) to yawn, to gape, to
     open widely. Cf. Chasm.]
     1. An empty, immeasurable space; a yawning chasm. [Archaic]
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Between us and there is fixed a great chaos. --Luke
                                                    xvi. 26
                                                    (Rhemish
                                                    Trans.).
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The confused, unorganized condition or mass of matter
        before the creation of distinct and orderly forms.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Any confused or disordered collection or state of things;
        a confused mixture; confusion; disorder.
        [1913 Webster]

chaos - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  chaos
      n 1: a state of extreme confusion and disorder [syn: chaos,
           pandemonium, bedlam, topsy-turvydom, topsy- turvyness
           ]
      2: the formless and disordered state of matter before the
         creation of the cosmos
      3: (Greek mythology) the most ancient of gods; the
         personification of the infinity of space preceding creation
         of the universe
      4: (physics) a dynamical system that is extremely sensitive to
         its initial conditions

chaos - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  chaos
  
     <mathematics> A property of some non-linear dynamic systems
     which exhibit sensitive dependence on initial conditions.
     This means that there are initial states which evolve within
     some finite time to states whose separation in one or more
     dimensions of state space depends, in an average sense,
     exponentially on their initial separation.
  
     Such systems may still be completely deterministic in that
     any future state of the system depends only on the initial
     conditions and the equations describing the change of the
     system with time.  It may, however, require arbitrarily high
     precision to actually calculate a future state to within some
     finite precision.
  
     ["On defining chaos", R. Glynn Holt
     <rgholt@voyager.jpl.nasa.gov> and D. Lynn Holt
     <lholt@seraph1.sewanee.edu>.
     
  (ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/ippe/preprints/Phil_of_Science/Holt_and_Holt.On_Defining_Chaos)]
  
     Fixed precision floating-point arithmetic, as used by most
     computers, may actually introduce chaotic dependence on
     initial conditions due to the accumulation of rounding errors
     (which constitutes a non-linear system).
  
     (1995-02-07)
  

chaos - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :

  161 Moby Thesaurus words for "chaos":
     agitation, aloofness, amorphia, amorphism, amorphousness,
     anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, anarchy, antinomianism,
     astronomical unit, bedlam, befuddlement, bewilderment, blurriness,
     bluster, bother, botheration, brawl, broil, brouhaha, cacophony,
     celestial spaces, cloud, commotion, confusion, cosmic space,
     criminal syndicalism, daze, diffusion, discombobulation,
     discomfiture, discomposure, disconcertion, discontinuity,
     discreteness, disjunction, dislocation, disorder, disorderliness,
     disorganization, disorientation, dispersal, dispersion, disruption,
     dissolution, disturbance, ebullition, embarrassment, embroilment,
     empty space, entropy, ether space, fabulous formless darkness,
     fanaticism, ferment, flap, flummox, flurry, fluster, flutter, fog,
     fomentation, foofaraw, formlessness, foul-up, frenzy, fuddle,
     fuddlement, fume, furor, furore, fury, fuss, fuzziness, hassle,
     haze, haziness, hubbub, incoherence, inconsistency, indecisiveness,
     indefiniteness, indeterminateness, interstellar space, jumble,
     lawlessness, license, light-year, lynch law, maze, mess, messiness,
     metagalactic space, misrule, mist, mistiness, mix-up, mob law,
     mob rule, mobocracy, morass, muddle, muddlement, nihilism,
     nonadhesion, noncohesion, obscurity, ocean of emptiness,
     ochlocracy, orderlessness, outer space, pandemonium, parsec,
     passion, perplexity, perturbation, pother, pressureless space,
     primal chaos, pucker, racket, rage, rebellion, revolution, row,
     ruckus, ruffle, rumpus, scattering, screw-up, separateness,
     shapelessness, shuffle, snafu, space, stew, storminess, sweat,
     swivet, syndicalism, tempestuousness, the void, the void above,
     tizzy, tohubohu, tumult, tumultuousness, turbulence, turmoil,
     unadherence, unadhesiveness, unclearness, unruliness, unsettlement,
     untenacity, uproar, upset, vagueness, wildness, zeal,
     zealousness