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Second Iteration: Airport
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Jurassic Park, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Chaos, Change, and Control
Sight and Insight
Flawed Human Nature
Technology
Summary
Analysis
Dressed in black, Ian Malcolm boards Hammond’s private jet in Dallas. Grant knows Malcom by reputation—he belongs to a cohort of mathematicians who use computers, study chaos theory, search for real-world applications for their theories, and dress and act like rock stars. Malcolm tells Ellie that he wears only black and gray because it wastes time to worry about things like clothing. Hammond introduces Malcolm as “a man of strong opinions.” And Malcolm strongly opines that Hammond’s island is “unworkable.” He confidently predicts that it will shut down imminently. And he pulls out his original consultancy paper to show his work in support of this hypothesis.
Ian Malcolm fulfills the role of the book’s philosopher, often voicing most clearly its theories and arguments. In particular, he speaks for the chaos and change that characterize life on earth; as a proponent of chaos theory, he operates under no illusions about his ability to control nature or the surrounding world, unlike Hammond and the other park creators. Malcolm exercises the only real kind of control: self-control.
Active
Themes
As the plane flies through the night, Malcolm explains his work to Grant and Gennaro. Physics, he says, successfully describes “the regular movement of objects.” But it struggles to predict or explain turbulent movements like weather. Chaos theory describes these turbulent movement by attempting to account for the tiny differences in initial conditions that systemic movement amplifies. Gennaro takes this to mean that chaos is “random and unpredictable,” but Malcolm continues to explain that complex systems frequently contain hidden regularities, an “underlying order.” Very briefly, chaos theory holds that complex systems have underlying order. And that simple systems can generate complex behavior by amplifying those tiny irregularities.
Understanding physics—a prerequisite to the development of technologies like the airplane the guests take to Jurassic Park—marks one of humanity’s great achievements. But, as Malcolm points out, just because humans can understand and exercise a sort of mastery over the way objects move in space doesn’t mean that they can unlock all of nature’s secrets. Chaos theory accounts for variables so small and numerous that people can’t see them, much less try to account for or control all of them. In essence, chaos theory offers a reminder of the underlying, apparent randomness that renders much of life unpredictable.
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Themes
Then why, Gennaro asks, does Malcolm think the project will fail? Malcolm’s critique hinges on the difficulty of predicting anything—even simple movements according to Newtonian physics—for more than a few seconds in real world conditions. In this light, Hammond’s project—the apparently simple setup of animals in a zoo condition—is bound to eventually show unpredictable behavior. The island is “an accident waiting to happen.”
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