: With the incredible technology that we have today, why is it still impossible to have 100% accuracy on predicting the weather?
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because you only have limited precision. now, don’t get me wrong, modern computer systems can have very high, even arbitrary precision arithmetic. but in practice, colloquially speaking, you only simulate with numbers that have a fixed-size representation, and therefore a fixed maximum precision. in a chaotic system like the global weather system even the smallest imperfections will quickly escalate into major computation inaccuracies to the point where eventually you can’t be confident in the results anymore. if you want to understand just how massive such an effect can be look up double-pendulum simulations online as an example for a very simple, highly chaotic system. watch how the smallest deviation from the start configuration is quickly amplified into behaviour that has absolutely no resemblance to the original behaviour. and now think about the infinite and complex interactions of the weather system on a global scale
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