Physics

Biography

Biography: Andreas Pfennig

Abstract

Molecular systems show Lyapunov instability, i.e. deterministic chaos. For the example of liquid water the magnitude of an introduced perturbation increases by a factor of 10 every 0.23 ps as evaluated from molecular-dynamics simulations. In chaos theory, the consequence is typically stated such that a prediction is impossible on intermediate timescale. The reason is that for the regarded system for every 0.23 ps farther into the future the starting conditions would need to be known by one more decimal digit, which quickly becomes practically infeasible.

The interaction of a faraway particle influences any observed molecule minimally, which due to the Lyapunov instability leads to a realizable shift in molecular behavior within at most 33 ps even for particles interacting from the end of the observable universe. Particles farther away do not have a lesser influence but rather the time until the effect of the interaction reaches a given magnitude is slightly longer. Of course the speed at which the interaction travels has to be accounted for, which does not alter the outcome in principle.

This effect does not only describe the result of chaos theory expressed as our practical inability to perform predictions but rather relates to interactions between particles and their effect in reality. If any interacting particle would be in a slightly different place, the observed system would behave differently after only some ps. This establishes a highly interconnected network of influences between all particels in the universe.

The consequences for our free will are discussed.