Why is it that seemingly similar atmospheric conditions result one day in nothing worse than squalls and showers and on another day in a full-blooded hurricane? What determines the pattern of turbulence in a stream of flowing water and what causes terrible fluctuations in an economy? Chaos theory is the branch of mathematics that attempts to deal with this apparent randomness in nature.<br><br>
The equations that underlie chaos theory are complex and have some bizarre properties. If you take two powerful computers made by different manufacturers, feed them both with identical figures say to 10 decimal places and then ask them to solve a \'chaotic\' equation, they will produce different results - not slightly different, but entirely different. The minute discrepancies in the way they handle calculations build up to produce massive differences in the results.<br><br>
Chaos theory might seem to sound the death knell for any attempt to make sense of the \'random\' and the \'unpredictable\'. But there is \'order\' in chaos. Chaotic equations produce mysterious results, known as \'FRACTALS\'. Fractals in fact are the shape of chaos, and very strange shapes some turn out to be. Most remarkably, they look very much the same at any level of magnification. Examine a fractal shape and it turns out to be made up of numerous smaller versions and so on, ad infinitum.
Fractals are more familiar than people suspect. Computers can generate convincing fractal landscapes by endlessly repetitive manipulation of a single initial set of figures. There is pattern and order, as well as fascination and beauty, in chaos.