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1-Page Summary of Chaos

Introduction

For centuries, scientists have assumed that the natural world is governed by basic principles of causality. Humans can observe events and make sense of them because they possess the ability to discern cause and effect relationships in nature. This assumption formed the bedrock for an age of enlightenment that changed how humans understand themselves and their world.

However, the concept of causality has been challenged by a new force that scientists have had to consider.

The Disappearance of Newtonian Certainty

Sir Isaac Newton wrote a book called the Principia Mathematica in 1687. The book described the basic principles of classical mechanics, which govern the activity of physical objects. For example, Newton stated that if an object is moving it will continue to move unless something stops it and that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. These basic laws made him believe that everything happens for a reason and as a result, events are predictable in nature.

Newton’s view of the world was causal. He believed that if you remove all outside influences, a system would settle into its natural state. A pendulum would swing back and forth in regular patterns. If predators were introduced to a pond of goldfish, they’d eat up the population until there weren’t enough left for them to survive on.

Similarly, a complex result must come from a complex cause. For example, the population of an animal in the wild depends on several different factors: weather and predators, disease and competition for resources. Therefore, if you’re looking to explain why there are fewer lions than there used to be, look at all possible causes–maybe there is less food or more diseases that kill lions.

Most scientists believed that different systems behave differently. For example, fluctuations of an animal population have nothing to do with the behavior of a pendulum or weather patterns. According to this view, every discipline has its own variables and causes of change.

However, at the beginning of the 20th century, science discovered that Newton’s laws were not absolute. Things like time and space are not constant but changeable. The first discovery was Einstein’s theory of general relativity which showed that time and space aren’t constants but can be changed by other objects in the universe.

Newtonian laws were challenged when it was discovered that subatomic particles do not follow the same rules as Newton’s laws. Unlike predictable pendulum swings, quarks and neutrinos behave in unpredictable ways. They don’t adhere to Newton’s laws because they’re not subject to causality (cause-and-effect).

Newton’s theory of gravity was proven wrong by Einstein with his theory of relativity. Quantum mechanics also disproved Newton’s theories, and chaos theory has done the same thing. Chaos theory has shown that even small forces can have monumental effects on their surroundings, which is something that traditional scientific thinking would not allow for.

The Promises of Weather

During the 1950s and 1960s, meteorologists were hopeful about their field. They had high hopes that they could use computing technology to predict weather patterns with perfect accuracy. The agriculture industry would increase its crop yields by using this information to its advantage. Planes would have the power to dissipate cloud cover and storms, which would be good for air travel. Humanity could manipulate weather as a tool for improving life on Earth.

Those who were invested in meteorology’s potential believed that weather behaved in the same way as celestial bodies and hoped to calculate the deterministic patterns of weather. Before computers, forecasting was guesswork based only on intuition. But with the advent of technology, meteorologists could gather infinite data and conduct infinite calculations about outcomes so they could become a true science.