CHAOS THEORY: How Well Can We Predict The Future?

For us chaos is something confusing, unpredictable and often an unwanted element in our lives. But what happens when you try to define chaos mathematically? How accurately can we predict the future? Well, this is where chaos theory comes in. It attempts to explain and predict chaos in mathematical equations. After Newton had established the three laws of motion, the future seemed predictable. We could explain the motions of celestial bodies, predict eclipses with pinpoint accuracy, that is until 1963 when Edward Lorenz discovered the Butterfly Effect which became the hallmark of chaos theory.

The Butterfly Effect

Explained by Edward Lorenz in his 1963 research paper, it goes on to explain how a flap of a butterfly’s wing might be the cause of a tornado. On a winter day, while running a simple stimulation regarding the weather patterns he came to realize that after he rounded off a variable from 0.506127 to 0.506, it caused a drastic change in the weather patterns. This result is what led to the famous quote that we quite often hear “small actions can have great consequences in life ". This is what was later termed as "sensitive dependence on initial conditions”.

Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions