Robert Stetson Shaw (born 1946) is an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

who was part of Eudaemonic Enterprises in Santa Cruz in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1988 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in chaos theory.

Chaos theory

Shaw was one of the pioneers of

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of Scientific method, scientific study and branch of mathematics. It focuses on underlying patterns and Deterministic system, deterministic Scientific law, laws of dynamical systems that are highly sens ...

and his work at

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...

on the subject was among the first research into the relationship between predictable motion and chaos in a landmark PhD thesis. He was part of the Dynamical Systems Collective with J. Doyne Farmer,

Norman Packard Norman Harry Packard (born 1954 in Billings, Montana) is a chaos theory physicist and one of the founders of the Prediction Company and ProtoLife. He is an alumnus of Reed College, with a PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Packard ...

, and James Crutchfield. The collective, also known as the Santa Cruz Chaos Cabal, was best known for its work in probing chaotic systems for signs of order. A documentary is being made about Shaw's life, his art, and his science, entitled ''Strange Attractors: a movie for curious people''.

Roulette

While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Shaw also worked briefly with the

Eudaemons The Eudaemons were a small group headed by graduate physics students J. Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard at the University of California Santa Cruz in the late 1970s. The group's immediate objective was to find a way to beat roulette using a conce ...

, a group of physicists attempting to create a

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

capable of predicting the outcome of a game of

roulette Roulette (named after the French language, French word meaning "little wheel") is a casino game which was likely developed from the Italy, Italian game Biribi. In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various grouping ...

.''The Eudaemonic Pie'' by Thomas A. Bass

Illustrations

Shaw's younger brother, Chris, an artist and filmmaker, produced illustrations for Shaw's papers and thesis, and also for those of Shaw's PhD advisers Ralph Abraham and William Burke. One cosmological painting of consecutive universes exploding and imploding in alternating

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

s and Big Crunches in Burke's cosmology textbook hangs on a wall at the American Center for Physics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Robert Living people 21st-century American physicists MacArthur Fellows University of California, Santa Cruz alumni Complex systems scientists Chaos theorists 1946 births