MOTM

In a message dated 11/17/2000 7:12:50 AM, ken.tkacs@... writes:

>People commonly use the term "Chaos" to mean "random," but it is not at
>all.

While taking some probability, statistics and stochastic processes courses 
about ten years ago, these confusions came up a lot due to term "chaos" 
suddenly bursting out inappropriately from several media. To clear up this 
confusion, the instructor explained the difference something like this: the 
definition of random events, such as the toss of a fair coin (probability of 
either event = 0.5) supposes that there is no information about the initial 
conditions nor prior trials which will in anyway help to determine the 
outcome of the succeeding trials. The term "chaos" refers to a particular 
type of nonlinear partial differential equation (possibly recursive?) where 
the input directly effects the output, but in a nonlinear way (I'm treading 
deep water here).

Regarding the (patented?) VC Chaosccillator, I've read several references to 
VCOs going chaotic by plugging the output into the FM input and varying the 
amplitude. Hmmm....

On a completely different topic entirely without relation to chaos or VCOs 
plugged into themselves, a really handy module might have a VCO and an 
undedicated VCA in the same package. Think of all the things that would allow 
one to patch up. I doubt there's a patent against having a VCO/VCA module.

JB