The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: How Chaos Theory Changed the Universe

**Chuck Bryant** (0:01)
Hey, everybody, Chuck here, and welcome to our sciency playlist. Super excited about this one. And I'm gonna kick it off, everybody, with this episode on how chaos theory changed the universe.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from howstuffworks.com.

**Josh Clark** (0:24)
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. So this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast about chaos theory. Like, have you ever seen Event Horizon?

**Chuck Bryant** (0:38)
Uh, I did, not bad.

**Josh Clark** (0:41)
Great movie, are you crazy?

**Chuck Bryant** (0:42)
I don't think it was great.

**Josh Clark** (0:43)
Oh, it was so imaginative.

**Chuck Bryant** (0:45)
I thought it was okay.

**Josh Clark** (0:46)
It was like a Lovecraftian thing in outer space.

**Chuck Bryant** (0:50)
Yeah.

**Josh Clark** (0:50)
I loved it, it was all right. I Lovecrafted it.

**Chuck Bryant** (0:53)
Yeah.

**Josh Clark** (0:53)
I liked it.
Um, that's what I think of when I think of chaos. You know, there's that one part where they kind of give you like a glimpse behind like the dimension that this action is taking place in to see the chaos underneath.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:07)
Oh, I should check that out again.

**Josh Clark** (1:09)
Yeah, I think you should.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:10)
I think about Jurassic Park and Jeff Goldblum as the creep. Dr. Malcolm explaining chaos in the little auto driving SUV or whatever that was.

**Josh Clark** (1:26)
Right.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:27)
Yeah.

**Josh Clark** (1:27)
That's why it was called in the script the auto driving SUV scene.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:30)
Yeah, and you know what? I actually rewatched that scene and it confirmed two things. One is that he actually did a pretty decent job for a Hollywood movie of a very rudimentary explanation of chaos.

**Josh Clark** (1:42)
Yeah. Oh, you watched it for this?

**Chuck Bryant** (1:45)
Yeah.

**Josh Clark** (1:45)
Oh, okay.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:45)
Yeah, just that scene. And then it also confirmed of what a creep that character was.

**Josh Clark** (1:50)
Yeah.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:50)
If you watch that scene, he's like, you know, he was all gross and flirty with her right in front of her ex.

**Josh Clark** (1:57)
Right.

**Chuck Bryant** (1:57)
But there's this, you know, he's talking to her. I didn't even notice this at first. He like, he just like touches her hair out of nowhere for no reason.

**Josh Clark** (2:05)
Really?

**Chuck Bryant** (2:05)
He's just talking to her and he just like grabs her hair and touches it. And I'm like, what a creep.

**Josh Clark** (2:09)
I know, if you look closely, you can see the hormones emerging through his chest hair.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:14)
Yeah.

**Josh Clark** (2:14)
It's grody.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:15)
And I love Jeff Goldblum. It's not a reflection on him.

**Josh Clark** (2:19)
He was basically doing Jeff Goldblum.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:20)
Well, that's what he, yeah, sure.

**Josh Clark** (2:22)
He's Jeff Goldblum.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:23)
But I don't think, that's how, in the manner in which he speaks, but I don't think he's a creep.
Do you? Wow.

**Josh Clark** (2:30)
I've got nothing against Jeff Goldblum.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:32)
Oh, okay.

**Josh Clark** (2:34)
I think he's doing Jeff Goldblum.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:36)
It was also a sign of the times. Like, if that movie were made today, Dr., what was her name in the movie?

**Josh Clark** (2:42)
Ellie Sattler, I think?

**Chuck Bryant** (2:44)
Yeah, Dr. Sattler would be like, it's very inappropriate to stroke my hair, dude.

**Josh Clark** (2:48)
Yeah.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:48)
Like, don't touch me.

**Josh Clark** (2:50)
Right.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:51)
But this was the 90s.

**Josh Clark** (2:53)
Yeah, it was free wheeling.

**Chuck Bryant** (2:55)
No, it was 90s.

**Josh Clark** (2:56)
It was the early mid 90s, I think. 92, 93, 94 The book came out in 1990, and in the book, Ian Malcolm, who's a cateician.

**Chuck Bryant** (3:06)
Yeah, a creep cateician.

**Josh Clark** (3:07)
Right.
He goes into even more depth about chaos theory. But that was, I mean, that was the first time I ever heard of chaos theory was from Jurassic Park.

**Chuck Bryant** (3:17)
Yeah, me too, probably.

**Josh Clark** (3:18)
And it really, it was really misleading. I think the entire term chaos is very misleading as far as the general public goes, as from what I researched for this article.

**Chuck Bryant** (3:32)
Well, yeah, I mean, you hear the word chaos as an English speaker, and you think frenetic and crazy.

**Josh Clark** (3:39)
Out of control.

**Chuck Bryant** (3:40)
Yeah, and that's not what it means in terms of science like this.