The hallmark of chaos is called sensitive dependence on initial conditions, which means if you make a small change right now, it’s going to be a big change in the future.
If the condensed matter professor had shown up in time, I would probably be a condensed matter physicist right now.
Externally, he is a member of the Science and Technology Experts Group of the National Academies of Sciences, a fellow of the American Physical Society, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Pentagon Vannevar Bush Fellow, a foreign member of Academia Europaea , and a corresponding fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and Letters of Scotland.
In all, Lai has more than 500 referenced journal articles with over 26,000 citations, and has secured over $12 million in federal funding.
“ASU is such a great place, especially as an interdisciplinary research environment; it’s super,” he said.