Question

What is the Chaos Theory?

Answer 1

From a meteorological stand point it is the theory that we cannot ever predict at 100% accuracy because we can't know all the variables.

Explanation:

It is odd to see this is astrophysics because usually people taking about chaos theory are referring to weather prediction and such. The most common example I see is a butterfly flapping it's wings in Brazil sets of a tornado in Texas. Personally I do like this at all since there simply isn't enough possible variables that A) are too small to measure and B) can cause a large enough effect to create a massive storm capable of making a tornado. I mean people in Chaos theory sometimes have no clue about the massive amount of energy require to make a storm like this. I digress.

The point is Chaos theory is the idea that there are simply too many variables that we cannot measure or we do not know to measure to allow a 100% prediction rate. That being said, this implies that if we knew all the variables that existed and were able to measure them then we could in fact have 10% accuracy of prediction which means that Chaos theory is not a theory about chaos but about extreme order.

This can be applied to many different areas apart from meteorology, and in astrophysics I imagine it could have an impact on prediction of celestial body movements and such.