CHAOS THEORY (ON HIATUS)

PROLOGUE

chaos theory
/ˈkāˌäs ˈthēərē/
the branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems whose behavior is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions, so that small alterations can give rise to strikingly great consequences.

Chaos theory states that a small change in a system can lead to massive consequences within that system.

An example of chaos theory is the butterfly effect; it's name coming from the example that a butterfly flapping it's wings in the Amazon Rainforest could lead to a devastating hurricane in Southern Florida.

We see examples of chaos theory and the butterfly effect everyday. Take, for example, billiards. When the cue ball is hit for the first time in the game, projected into the triangle of the 15 other balls, the 15 balls will never scatter in the same way. This is chaos theory. The minuscule change in angle with the cue stick, the unnoticeable difference in the amount of force you hit the ball with, the location of the 15 balls, even a slight disturbance in the condition of the air, will drastically effect the placement of all the balls.

Perhaps more practical examples of this effect occur within social, human systems; for example: A teenage girl is late on her way to class. She is rushing through the halls of her school, trying to get to class before the late bell rings, and she ends up running head on into a boy. Both of them are from completely different social circles, and they would never talk to each other unless they really had to. She is a jock, he is a nerd. She ends up dropping everything, all her papers, her binder, her lunchbox, on the ground. He is a gentleman, so of course he helps her pick everything up. While picking up her binder, he sees a picture of a musician he likes on her cover. He points this out, the girl is interested and shocked they both like this artist, and she suggests they eat lunch together the following period. They, of course, do. They discuss their interests, and soon enough, the romantic tension builds between them. They start going steady. He takes her to the homecoming dance, She silently cheers him on at the regional arithmetic decathlon, and they both with the cutest couple superlative in their senior year. They, of course, have their ups and downs like any couple, but overall, they're happy. They go through college, get married, and start a family. He works as a cardiologist at the local hospital, and she works as an English II teacher at a high school, as well as the Junior Varsity girls' soccer coach. Together, they have one child. He takes after his father, and is very smart. But, he has a but of a sadistic side, and it's only worsened by the fact that his parents are never home, always busy with work. Thus, as he grows up, he slowly becomes sociopathic, with a hatred for the world, even though he is massively intelligent. He follows in his father's footsteps further, and starts studying pathological medicine and genetics. He studies for years and years and gets his Master's degree in the subject. His sadism and hatred for the world has just grown further over the years, due to a series of unfortunate romantic conquests, never having any real friends, and being so engulfed in his studies that he never had time to be young. So he takes all the knowledge he has and puts it to use. He orders a strand of bacteria lethal to humans off some online black market. It arrives, and he starts to genetically modify it to make it more and more severe and deadly. Eventually, he sets the bacteria free to reproduce by going to his local grocery store and lightly dusting it over a nice display of golden delicious apples. The bacteria spreads like wildfire, but is slow developing in humans, so eventually, his entire town starts coming down with what at first seems to be a common cold. Then his state, then his country, then almost the entire world. It starts to slowly get worse, eventually leading to death. By the time doctors figured out what was going on, 10% of the population was dead, and the bacteria started rapidly self-mutating, becoming more violent and more deadly. 90% of the human race was deceased by the time the cure was 50% complete. Humanity was on the brink of extinction.

All because one girl was running to class.

Now, of course, that's just one path of many. It's a further more complex system than that of a game of pool or destructive weather. But it's still chaos theory.

It's impossible to calculate exactly how the butterfly effect will turn out in non-mathematical situations, ones involving social, lifestyle situations. No one will ever know exactly how these situations will unfold, it's not like the billiards situation, where these situations can be precisely calculated; no, humans are unpredictable. Humans cannot be  calculated. Humans will never exactly know what other humans will say, what they will do, how they will react to situations, all of the time.

But, what if you could know?

What if you had some time-reversing power; nothing severe, just something to go back by a few minutes or seconds, maybe even an hour.

What if you were able to ask someone a question, have their response, then "rewind," in a sense, a few moments back to before you asked the question? Yes, of course, tone and speech and enunciation and volume and et cetera play a large role in how someone responds to you, but, for the most part, you know exactly their response.

In a sense, you could control chaos theory.

But that's impossible, right?