Canonical · Physics & Entropy · Paper

Deterministic Chaos

Edward Lorenz · 1963

"Fully deterministic systems — with no randomness anywhere in their equations — can still become practically unpredictable, because tiny differences in starting conditions grow exponentially over time until prediction becomes impossible."

The idea

A meteorologist rerunning a weather simulation in 1961 rounded one input from six decimal places to three, expecting a negligible difference. The forecast came out completely different — and chaos theory was born.

Why it works

The takeaway — recall it first

Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

"Every closed system trends toward disorder, and that one-way drift is the only law of physics that distinguishes past from future."

Rudolf Clausius · ModelContinue→