Can someone explain the chaos theory and the butterfly effect to me?
To put it simply, the chaos theory states that small changes in the universe will grow with time. This is because the universe is complicated enough to be a chaotic system; in mathematical terms, similar initial conditions will diverge as the system evolves. The butterfly effect is an illustration of this concept. Say you designed a program that predicted the weather with perfect accuracy by taking EVERYTHING into account: sun, wind, tides, geological activity, animal movements… Say you factored everything into this program with impeccable detail, except that you forgot to account for a single butterfly flapping its wings somewhere on Earth. For years, your program would be perfectly accurate, because the effect of the butterfly would be negligible. As time went on, though, the butterfly would keep flapping its wings, which would slightly alter wind patters, which would have an effect on ocean currents and temperatures, which would impact erosion and migration patterns, etc. After a
