The Stability of our universe in the face of Chaos Traditionally, scientists have looked for the simplest view of the world around us. Now, mathematics and computer powers have produced a theory that helpsresearchers to understand the complexities of nature. The theory of chaos touches all disciplines. -Ian Percival, The Essence of Chaos Part I: The Basics of Chaos. Watch a leaf flow down stream; watch its behavior within the water Perhaps it will sit upon the surface, gently twirling along with the current, dancing aroundeddies, slightly spinning, then all of a sudden, it slaps into a rock or gets sucked beneath the water by a small whirlpool. After doing this enough times one will realizeit is nearly impossible to accurately predict a leafs travel downstream, as the slightest change in its position can result in a severe deviation from its original path. Asmall change in one variable can have a disproportional, even catastrophic, impact on other variables; this is the signature of chaos. By no means, though, is that theextent. Scientists used to, before the chaos theory, believe in the theory of reductionism, many still do. Reductionism imagines nature as equally capable of being assembledand disassembled. Reductionists think that when everything is broken down a universal theory will become evident that will explain all things. Reductionism impliedthe rather simple view of chaos evident in Laplaces dream of a universal formula: Chaos was merely complexity so great that in practice scientists couldnt track it,but in principle they might one day be able to. When that day came there would be no chaos, everything in existence would be perfectly predictable, no surprises,the world would be safely mutable. The universe would be completely controlled by Newtons laws. 1 Chaos touches all things in existence, and all sciences, mathematics, physics, biology, anthropology, entomology, astronomy, even the Ivory Tower science ofN...
