What is the Chaos Theory?

It's strange to see this in astrophysics because most discussions of chaos theory relate to weather forecasting and similar topics. The most common example I see is when a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, causing a tornado to form in Texas. Personally, I don't mind this at all because there aren't enough variables that can either A) be too small to measure or B) have a significant enough impact to generate a massive storm powerful enough to produce a tornado. I mean, sometimes those who study chaos theory don't realize how much energy is needed to produce a storm like this. But I digress.

The idea behind Chaos Theory is that there are simply too many variables that we do not know how to measure or cannot measure in order to allow for a 100% prediction rate. That being said, this suggests that we could actually achieve a 10% prediction accuracy if we knew every variable that existed and could measure it. Therefore, Chaos Theory is not a theory about chaos but rather extreme order.

This has applications far beyond meteorology, and I can see how it could affect the prediction of celestial body movements and other things in astrophysics.

Applications of chaos theory can be found in a variety of fields, such as computer science, economics, biology, and meteorology. Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics and physics that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. It studies how small changes in initial conditions can lead to drastically different outcomes in nonlinear systems, often leading to seemingly random behavior.