chaotic system

Definition

Complex system that shows sensitivity to initial conditions, such as an economy, a stockmarket, or weather. In such systems any uncertainty (no matter how small) in the beginning will produce rapidly escalating and compounding errors in the prediction of the system's future behavior. To make an accurate prediction of long-term behavior of such systems, the initial conditions must be known in their entirety and to an infinite level of accuracy. In other words, it is impossible to predict the future behavior of any complex (chaotic) system.