I remember reading that a butterfly on the otherside of the world can cause a hurricane on the opposite side, and it’s down to chaos theory, could someone explain what chaos theory is please? Thanks
In: 42
Paraphrasing Ian malcolm
Complexity theory is the idea that from far away complex systems look simple, and the closer you look the more complex they become. Seemingly simple and predictable systems are in fact inherently chaotic, and incredibly minute inputs lead to disproportionately enormous outcomes. The classic example that leads to the name “butterfly effect” is from modeling weather systems: a butterfly flaps its wings in London and it monsoons in Beijing, or whatever cities you want to insert. Predicting tomorrow’s weather is easy, but predicting next week’s weather? Next months? Next year’s? The complexity of the system makes predicting outcomes beyond the immidiately close to impossible.
In jurassic park Malcolm talks about cotton prices – we have accurate records of cotton prices going back long enough to provide a decent sample size for research. If you graph global cotton prices over the course of a decade, it looks generally the same as a graph of cotton prices over the course of a year, which looks generally the same as a graph of cotton prices over the course of a month, which looks generally the same as a graph of cotton prices over the course of a week, which looks generally the same as a graph of cotton prices over the course of a day, etc. All of this would lead you to believe cotton prices are a simple and easily predictable system. But in fact cotton prices are a product of a hugely complex system, wherein small changes in temperature, weather, shipping patterns, pest populations, etc. Can have enormous and unpredictable implications on the price of cotton at any given moment.
If you looked at a graph of your life – the entire lifetime from beginning to end would look generally like a decade, like a year, like a month, like a day. But can you predict accurately and specifically what’s going to happen to you a week from today? A month? A year? A month from now it will generally be colder than it is today, and a month from now I’ll generally be doing the same thing I am right now. But predicting specific outcomes in such inherently chaotic systems is incredibly difficult.
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