The Who, What, When, Where and Why of Chemistry
Chemistry is not a world unto itself. It is woven firmly into the fabric of the rest of the world, and various fields, from literature to archeology, thread their way through the chemist's text.
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Weird Words of Science: stochastic
I'm teaching a graduate course in mathematical modeling of natural processes. Many math modeling techniques rely on the random numbers and are more generally known as stochastic algorithms. A simple example is numerical integration. We used numerical integration techniques to the value of pi by (virtually) throwing darts at a circular target embedded in square (figure). The ratio of hits inside the circle to the total hits is pi/4. Stochastic comes from the Greek stochastikos "to take a guess", which itself derives from stochos - "target", so the target image above is apt.
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Markup Key:
- <b>bold</b> = bold
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- <a href="http://www.fieldofscience.com/">FoS</a> = FoS
I 'stochastic' from printing - I work on a magazine. It works well with large B&W images and images details that need to be seen.
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