About
Fluid mechanics, and mechanics in general, occupies an especial place in physics because the equations of motion are known and generally trusted. That makes the connection between cause and effect relatively easy to study, essentially amounting to performing simulations or well-planned experiments. The inverse way, from effect to cause, has received less attention, to the point that its very definition is open to debate. It is the premise of the proposed conference that the advent of ever faster computers is beginning to make the inverse problem more tractable, and that the time is ripe for a discussion of what can be done, how to do it, and what results could be expected, both in the short and in the medium term.
Scope
- What counts as a cause if we know the equations? Over what temporal horizon?
- Are causal events relevant in chaotic systems, or merely intellectual curiosities?
- Can causal relevance be used to define structures?
- Are causal events related to coherence? To invariant solutions?
- Does elucidation of causes always require interventional experiments?
- Do on- and out-of-attractor perturbations carry the same or different messages?
- Is causation more useful than correlation? Are they really different?
- Is causal significance different from sensitivity to perturbations?
- Control implications.
- How much can be done with limited information (such as from experiments)?
