What are the limitations of chaos theory? Why doesn't it predict the future?

Answer 1

Chaos theory says that to predict the future of a complex system (like weather for example) you need to know EXACTLY what the state of each part of the system is at the present time. This is possible in theory but impossible in practice.

If your guess of the present state is just a little bit off, then this difference will escalate with time and your predictions will be wrong.

Answer 2

No. You are dealing strictly in Newtonian physics and you're argument would be sound if the universe was Newtonian but it is not. The two major issues here and the limitation imposed by relativity (the fact that information cannot propagate faster than light) and the uncertainty principle. The first means that it is impossible within our laws of physics to simultaneously know everything, because the information must cross the distances at a relatively slow rate. The second is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics you can never know the position and spin of a sub atomic particle. This is NOT, I repeat NOT, a human limitation. This is a fundamental property of the system the more precise you know one the more you lose the other. There is an inherent degree of uncertainty build into our universe at it's fundamental scales therefore you cannot predict the future. EDIT: Yes if you had 100% knowledge then you could predict the future. In fact if you had 100% knowledge, wouldn't that INCLUDE knowledge of the future? My point is simply that 100% knowledge is not within the laws of physics. I don't mean not within human capability, I mean the laws of physics themselves do not allow it. If you want to postulate something that is not bound by the laws of physics, something "supernatural", then you're free to make up whatever you like which makes it meaningless.

Answer 3

Chaos theory works similary to statistics. You can't predict a certain behvior from a statistic but you can tell what range it should fall in. Same thing with chaos, an astroids orbit may not pass through the exact point in a "perpendicular" plane, yet it may pass through the same region of that plain enough to make over all predictions about the orbit of the astroid.

The interesting thing is systems that have both predictable and choatic behavior under different conditions.

Answer 4

Well, chaos theory in itself sort of explains the difficulty involved in predicting the future to any degree of accuracy. Take weather for example. Weather patterns are a perfect example of Chaos Theory. We can usually predict weather patterns pretty well when they are in the near future, but as time goes on, more factors influence the weather, and it becomes practically impossible to predict what will happen. That example is analogous to most other Chaos Theory examples in that time is a huge limitation. As more time passes, more and more factors influence what can happen.

Answer 5

By its very definition, the chaos isn't going to predict anything 100% accurately - only a likely outcome or probability of a certain outcome.

Kind of like a long range weather report, eh?

Answer 6

In mathematics and physics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that under certain conditions exhibit a phenomenon known as chaos. Among the characteristics of chaotic systems, described below, is sensitivity to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, the behavior of systems that exhibit chaos appears to be random, even though the system is deterministic in the sense that it is well defined and contains no random parameters. Examples of such systems include the atmosphere, the solar system, plate tectonics, turbulent fluids, economics, and population growth.

it doesnt predict future...