Transcript

If I roll a dice, can I know how it will land before it comes to rest? This week, we’re going to tackle the challenge of looking into the future. Can we predict the future before it becomes the present? Such an ability gives anyone with such knowledge unrivalled power! We begin with the mathematics of probability – an amazing tool that allows us to navigate the uncertainties of everything from games of chance to the behaviour of particles of gas. But perhaps we don’t need to rely on probabilities. Post-Newton, the equations of mathematics and physics gave us the hope that we could know the destiny of the universe in all its complexity. But as you will find out in this week, the mathematics of chaos theory – discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century – places impenetrable limitations on what we can know about the future. The devil, it appears, is in the detail.