We live in a world that we can consider, for the most part, quite predictable. For example, I can say with certainty that if someone does not study for a test, they will not perform as well as if they had studied. What if this wasn't always the case? What if nothing had a fixed outcome and all possible outcomes were “fair”? This is chaos theory. Chaos theory is the study of dynamic systems that are strongly dependent on their initial conditions (abarim). There are several systems so dependent on their initial conditions that even a rounding error in an equation will cause it to spin out of control – they are considered part of the butterfly effect (stsci). Systems that fall under the category of chaos theory and the butterfly effect are used to determine the behavior of a system over time. To create a model of the system, we need to know the exact initial conditions; however, if the values ​​are slightly off, the butterfly effect will occur and cause the system to malfunction. Unfortunately, Mother Nature does not work in full, or even in real numbers. This makes it impossible to determine the exact initial conditions. So how can chaos theory use a principle that depends entirely on its initial conditions, when we can't even determine those conditions? Chaos theory itself is a relatively new term, but the ideas behind it date back to the 1800s. In the 1880s, Henri Poincaré was the first to encounter chaotic systems during his research on the problem of three body (earthlink). The three-body problem involves taking an initial set of data points and then determining their movement over time. At the time, this three-body problem was used to trace the motion of planets and other celestial bodies... middle of paper ......ttp://www.stsci.edu/~ lbradley/seminar /butterfly.html>."HENRI POINCARE." United States Naval Academy | Home page. United States Naval Academy, April 10, 2011. Web. December 8, 2011. Heresiarch, Wile E. “Chaos Theory.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia, September 9, 2009. Web. December 9, 2011. .Maudlin, Tim and Frank Artnzenius. “Time Travel and Modern Physics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, January 1, 2009. Web. December 8, 2011. Uittenbogaard, Arie. “Chaos theory for beginners; an introduction.” Quantum mechanics, chaos theory and the reliability of the Bible. Abarim, June 5, 2010. Web. Dec 08.. 2011. .