Intro to Chaos Theory

A detailed Summary of Intro to Chaos Theory


Chaos is unpredictable behavior arising in a realistic system because of great sensitivity to beginning circumstances. Chaos arises in active systems. If two very close starting points diverge even a tiny bit, their future behavior is eventually unpredictable. Every change in the system will compound with time, so, very slight changes in the starting point can lead to enormously different outcomes. Also, because of the extreme disorder, predicting the future path of the system is practically impossible. The behavior is too sensitive to the conditions, so therefore it is always changing. Chaotic behavior, although appearing random, arises from a very hard basis and it is very sensitive to any disturbances.

The system the above paragraph is referring to can be anything. A set of equations is a system, as well as weather patterns. All systems display chaotic properties. For example, weather forecasts are never totally accurate. Even if the forecast is for the week or a day, it may be totally wrong. This is due to minor disturbances in airflow. Each disturbance may be minor, but the changes will increase and add up in time. Soon, the weather will be far different than what was expected.


Chaos theory is a critical part of science, mathematics, art and computing. It proves that the way to express an unpredictable system is in representations of the behavior of a system. So, chaos theory, which many people believe is about unpredictability, is actually about predictability in many different systems. Chaos theory arose as scientists and mathematicians started to program numbers in the computer. They tried different ways of plotting and exploring equations to get different results. After investigating, the scientists found out many new ideas and discoveries.

Edward Lorenz was a meteorologist that first experimented in chaos. In 1960, he was working on weather prediction, with a set of twelve equations to model the weather. His goal was to predict the weather for a period of time. Even though it didn't predict the weather itself, the computer program did theoretically predict what the weather might be.



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Approximate Word count = 1235
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous

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