What is chaos theory and where would I get a basic understanding of it?
I would be interested in as simple a description as can be managed. If anyone can point me in the direction of good books/sites/etc. that can explain further, it would be appreciated.
For any necessary « level-scaling » matters for pointing out further resources:
I know nothing of the subject.
I am a college graduate, although with only some mathematical background (I took several more basic college-level mathematics courses, but I did not specialize in a mathematical discipline).
I am a native speaker of English and have no other language fluencies.
The best book for the layperson is James Gleick’s « Chaos: The Making of a New Science. » It’s now out in paperback and used copies go for less than a dollar on Amazon.
Very briefly, chaos theory says that some phenomena are governed by equations that have extremely different outputs for only very small changes in the input. That is, changing the input value by, say, only .01% might give a change in the output value of several thousand per cent.
Such processes do exist in the natural world. Global weather is often given as an example. A small change at point x on the globe may end up inducing an extremely large change elsewhere.
Because the system output is so unstable with respect to its inputs and because we have limited ability to measure the inputs exactly, the results can be widely different even for what appear to be (within our limits of measurement) the same input values–that is, it’s chaotic!
The classic metaphor for all this is a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia (the input) causes a tornado in Nebraska (the output). A tad exaggerated, but you get the idea
This is an extremely high level view of what has become a very complex science, but Gleick’s book explains it all in easy to understand, non-mathematical terms (which is probably why it was a best seller).
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