Chaos theory is a theory that holds that some systems, such as weather, are ultimately unpredictable because of the effects of small scale events that cannot be included in the prediction equations. In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems, those whose states evolve with time, that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, often referred to as the butterfly effect.
Recommended Resources
Teaches the reader about various perspectives such as definitions of chaos, complex adaptive systems, deterministic chaos, and chaos theory as it pertains to organizational development.
http://managementhelp.org/systems/chaos/chaos.htm
Covers such chaos theory basics as self-similarity, the Mandelbrot Set, the Household Set, and Gravity.
http://www.abarim-publications.com/ChaosTheoryIntroduction.html
Chaos Theory: A Brief Introduction
An overview of chaos theory is presented here, including illustrations, a bibliography, and articles on related topics, such as math and real life, an introduction to fractional dimensions.
http://imho.com/grae/chaos/
Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences
The Society is an international forum bringing together researchers, theoreticians and practitioners involved in the application of dynamical systems theory, self-organization, neural nets, fractals, cellular automata, agent-based modeling and related forms of chaos theories to psychology and the life sciences. Resources available include a data library, data analysis and other articles on the subject, as well as a blog and online discussion forum.
http://www.societyforchaostheory.org/
Presents an introduction to the theory critical points, and the application of Chaos Theory in everyday life.
http://library.thinkquest.org/3493/noframes/chaos.html
The University of Texas presents a five-part online course about chaos theory. Lessons are about the philosophy of determinism, initial conditions, uncertainty of measurements, dynamical instabilities, and manifestations of chaos.
http://order.ph.utexas.edu/chaos/
