AN

ASSIGNMENT

ON

CHAOS THOERY

BY
Name: OGUNJIRIN IRETIOLUWA OLUWASEUN
Matric No: LCU/UG/22/21408

Course: Theories And Techniques of Administrative Management

SUBMITTED

TO

GRACE OLOUKOI, Ph.D

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING

FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT

LEED CITY UNIVERSITY, IBADAN, NIGERIA

DECEMBER, 2023
1.0 What is Chaos?

The word Chaos comes from the Greek word “Khaos”, meaning “gaping void”.

Mathematicians say it is tough to define chaos, but is easy to “recognize it when you

see it.” Chaos in other words means a state of total confusion or predictability in the

behavior of a complex natural system. According to the dictionary.com website, chaos

is “a state of utter confusion and disorder; a total lack of organization or order.”

The word Chaos comes from the Greek word “Khaos”, meaning “gaping void”.

Mathematicians say it is tough to define chaos, but is easy to “recognize it when you

see it.”

Chaos in other words means a state of total confusion or predictability in the

behavior of a complex natural system. According to the dictionary.com website, chaos

is “a state of utter confusion and disorder; a total lack of organization or order.”

Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to

initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small

differences in initial conditions yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems,

rendering long-term prediction impossible in general. This happens even though these

systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by

their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.

1.1 Chaos Theory?

Chaos theory (Devaney 1989) is the concept that a small change now can result in

a very large change later. It is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in

several disciplines including physics, engineering, economics, biology (Morse 1967),

and philosophy which primarily states that small differences in initial conditions (such

as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) can yield widely diverging

outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general. I

understanding this topic.

Chaos theory is one of the fundamental theories in our lives. It is the study of

complex, nonlinear dynamic systems. It is a branch of mathematics that deals with

systems that appear to be orderly (deterministic) but, in fact, harbor chaotic behaviors.

It also deals with systems that appear to be chaotic, but, in fact, have underlying order.

In other words, the deterministic nature (Robert 1976) of these systems does not make

them predictable. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

Nature is highly complex, and the only prediction you can make is that she is

unpredictable. Chaos Theory has managed to somewhat capture the beauty of the

unpredictable and display it in the most awesome patterns. Nature, when looked upon

with the right kind of eyes, presents her as one of the most fabulous works of art ever.

Chaos Theory (Lorenz 1963) holds to the axiom that reality itself subsists in a

state of ontological anarchy. The phenomenon of Chaos theory was introduced to the

modern world by Edward Lorenz in 1972 with conceptualization of “Butterfly Effect‟.

Understanding this theory will help make a complex system more predictable. Thus

when working with a system you should be aware of all the inputs and keep them

controlled. As chaos theory was developed by inputs of various mathematicians and

scientists, its applications are found in a large number of scientific fields. Lorenz was

a meteorologist who developed a mathematical model used to model the way the air

moves in the atmosphere. It caused vast differences in the outcome of the model. In

this way he discovered the principle of Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions

(SDIC), which is now viewed as a key component in any chaotic system. A

multidisciplinary interest in chaos, complexity and self-organizing systems started in

1970‟s with the invention of computers. Benoît Mandlebrot found the piece of the
chaos puzzle that put all things together. Mandelbrot published a book, The Fractal

Geometry of Nature (Devaney and Keen 1989), which looked into a mathematical

basis of pattern formation in nature, much like the earlier work of Turing. His fractals

(the geometry of fractional dimensions) helped describe or picture the actions of

chaos, rather than explain it.

Chaos and its workings could now be seen in color on a computer. In the early

1970‟s, May was working on a model that addressed how insect birthrate varied with

food supply. He found that at certain critical values, his equation required twice time

to return to its original state- the period having doubled in value. After several

period-doubling cycles, his model became unpredictable, rather like actual insect

populations tend to be unpredictable.

Since May‟s discovery with insects, mathematicians have found that this

period-doubling is a natural route to chaos for many different systems. The

deterministic chaos implies the uniqueness and distinguishable evolution of each

individual trajectory in the system. That is why it is unpredictable, i.e. a single

trajectory cannot be completely predictable for all future or past times, unless all the

initial data of that individual trajectory is exactly known. But, if the number of

individual trajectories is too large, or infinite, the probability to know exactly the

initial data of one of them, is usually equal to zero.

1.2 Chaotic Systems

Chaotic systems are unstable since they tend not to resist any outside disturbances

but instead react in significant ways. In other words, they do not shrug off external

influences but are partly navigated by them. These systems are deterministic because

they are made up of few, simple differential equations, and make no references to

implicit chance mechanisms. A deterministic system is a system in which no

be chaotic whenever its evolution depends on the initial conditions. This property

implies that two trajectories emerging from two different close by initial conditions.

However, only in the last thirty years of twentieth century, experimental

observations have pointed out that. In fact, chaotic systems are common in nature.

Many natural phenomena can also be characterized as being chaotic. They can be

found in meteorology, solar system, heart and brain of living organisms and so on.

1.2.1 Characteristics of a chaotic system:

(i) No periodic behavior.

(ii) Sensitivity to initial conditions.

(iii) Chaotic motion is difficult or impossible to forecast.

(iv) The motion looks random.

(v) Non-linear.

Because of the various factors involved in chaotic systems, they are hard to

predict. A lot of complicated and computations and mathematical equations are

involved. Solutions of chaotic systems can be complex and typically they cannot be

easily extrapolated from current trends. The game of Roulette is an interesting

example that might illustrate the distinction between random and chaotic systems. If

we study the statistics of the outcome of repeated games, then we can see that the

sequence of numbers is completely random. Finally chaotic systems are very sensitive

to the initial condition which means that a slight change in the starting point can lead

to enormously different outcomes. This makes the system fairly unpredictable.

According to chaos theory the world is a nonlinear, complicated and

unpredictable system. This theory refers to systems which while displaying disorder

contain a kind of order hidden inside them, and present disordered, nonlinear,

unpredictable behavior in systems and believes in a ultimate order pattern among all

these disorders. Because of being nonlinear and complex it is very difficult to present

a model for chaos systems. For this reason it is attempted to present some aspects of

chaos systems with the help of examples and computerized models. Morgan’s

example (1997) for these systems is the mass of “birds”, “bats“, or “fish” which are

moving according to these three laws:

1- moving without collision,

2- moving beside each other and maintaining the movement like this,

3- not getting so distant of each other. This pattern is a computerized pattern which

represents a dynamic mass or a chaotic system whose movement details is

unpredictable but as a whole contains order. The mass of birds, weather patterns

changes, complex chemical reactions, termites community, and insects noisy flying,

are different types of chaotic systems. Decision Making in Chaotic Condition

Considering the decision making in certain and specified conditions and in stable

environments different models are designed for decision making in management texts.

Disorder overshadowed all scientific areas in chaos theory and decision making

models in this theory are not exception to this. In traditional look to management,

decision making is a predictable process and failure in decision making is resulted

from lacking knowledge or limits in prediction techniques and in attempt. While

chaos theory, assumes that decision making is unpredictable and attempt for

prediction future is a vain attempt. Or at least it believes that predicting future

correct and complete information is not achievable, and events are continually

inconstant and have no relation with what happened in the past. One of the models

which is provided in response to current conditions is a model called “Garbage Can”

which may refer to disordered and turmoil condition of the decision making. Some

scientists have accepted this model as a suitable one for modern organizations since

they are organized disorders. This model was first designed by three person named

Cohen, March, and Olsen. Using this model they wanted to describe decision making

in too vague and disordered conditions. This model actually put the presupposition of

politic and rational models under question and thinks that their insensitivity to vague

and disordered conditions is the reason of their incredibility.

2.1 Applications of Chaos Theory

Chaos theory was born from observing weather patterns, but it has become

applicable to a variety of other situations. Some areas benefiting from chaos theory

today are mathematics, geology, microbiology, biology, computer science, economics,

engineering, finance, algorithmic trading, meteorology, philosophy, anthropology,

physics, politics, population dynamics, physiology, and robotics. Besides there are so

many comprehensive list as new applications are appearing. These systems include

weather models, the stock market, bird migration patterns, behavior of boiling water,

neural networks and systems related to quantum phenomena. This theory is based on

two main components;

The first one is that systems, regardless of their degree of complexity, depend on

an underlying overall equation or a principle that governs their behavior thus making

it deterministic, theoretically, which is not due to its instability and the presence of a

large number of contributing factors.

minute change in the initial conditions, such as rounding errors in numerical

computation of a certain dynamical system can produce cataclysmic and

unpredictable outcomes for that dynamical system. Now we describe the following

applications of chaos theory in our real life.

Researchers have continued to apply chaos theory in Stock Market, in the

Garment, Industry and Fashion Design, in the Human Body in the Social Sciences,

Engineering, Robotics, in Circuits, to Produce Music, psychology.

The effect of chaos theory on organization and management theories This effect

can be observed in issues such as learning organizations, analyzing the organization

through the brain metaphors and hologram, paying attention to autonomous teams and

decentralized and teamwork structures. According to Alvani (1387) the theories of

scientific management, human relationship, quantitative management, and system

management become legends and modern realities are appeared in chaos and disorder

theories with particular properties. According to Hutch (1997) in the era that changes

are continual, accidental and constant, it is essential to break traditional thinking

methods in order to use changes for our benefit. We are entered the era of misology;

the era of big dangers and big opportunities.

3.0 Limitations of the Chaos Theory

In this section we first will argue that limitations need to be acknowledged simply

as part of human experience and that if properly conceptualized, they will assist both

career counselors and their clients, to a deeper appreciation of reality and to more

effective ways of successfully negotiating it. Next the nature of limitation will be

examined and its implications for how we ought to think about our lives and careers.
The two major issues here and the limitation imposed by relativity (the fact that

information cannot propagate faster than light) and the uncertainty principle:

The first means that it is impossible within our laws of physics to simultaneously

know everything, because the information must cross the distances at a relatively slow

rate. The second is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics you can never

know the position and spin of a sub atomic particle. This is not, I repeat not, a human

limitation. This is a fundamental property of the system the more precise you know

one the more you lose the other. Chaos theory works similarly to statistics. You can't

predict a certain behavior from a statistic but you can tell what range it should fall in.

Same thing with chaos, an asteroids orbit may not pass through the exact point in a

“perpendicular” plane, yet it may pass through the same region of that plain enough to

make over all predictions about the orbit of the asteroid.

Chaos theory in itself sort of explains the difficulty involved in predicting the

future to any degree of accuracy. Take weather for example. Weather patterns are a

perfect example of Chaos Theory. We can usually predict weather patterns pretty well

when they are in the near future, but as time goes on, more factors influence the

weather, and it becomes practically impossible to predict what will happen. That

example is analogous to most other Chaos Theory examples in that time is a huge

limitation. As more time passes, more and more factors influence what can happen.

3.1 Control of Chaos

Control of chaos is the stabilization, by means of small system perturbations, of

one of these unstable periodic orbits. The result is to render an otherwise chaotic

motion more stable and predictable, which is often an advantage. The perturbation

must be tiny compared to the overall size of the attractor of the system to avoid

significant modification of the system's natural dynamics. Several techniques have

the OGY (Ott, Grebogi and Yorke) method, and Pyragas continuous control. Both

methods require a previous determination of the unstable periodic orbits of the chaotic

system before the controlling algorithm can be designed.

Now we discuss the idea of controlling of chaos. There are three ways to control

chaos (Garfinkelet, 1992):

1. Alter organizational parameters so that the range of fluctuations is limited.

2. Apply small perturbations to the chaotic system to try and cause it to organize.

3. Change the relationship between the organization and the environment.

Four common properties in chaotic systems are as follows:

1. Butterfly effect According to butterfly effect, a small change although

insignificant like flying of a butterfly can lead to tremendous changes in a system, or

according to the author of scientific articles “Kevin Kelly” in complex nonlinear

systems any small change can create another small change and the next change will

create another one until a qualitative change occurs (Morgan, 1997). For example in

the following non-linear equation changing the value of the x from 0 to 0.01 will

bring a big change in the value of the function. F(x)= (10000)100x X=0 F(x)= 1

X=0/01 F(x)=10000

2. Dynamic Adaptability In relation to their environment disordered systems act like

live creators and a kind of active adaptability is established between them and their

environment. Like the intelligence of human being’s brain this adaptability is of

immediate emergence kind. The amount and kind of the intelligence of human being’s

brain isn’t predetermined, no pattern is predicted for that, but it is an emerging and

unplanned phenomenon which evolves as time elapses. Active adaptive systems

possess following properties:

⚫ They have the Property of Synergy:

⚫ They are learning systems:

3. self-likeness In chaos theory and its equations, a kind of likeness is recognizable

between the components and the whole. Its well-known example is a hologram plate

on which an image has been recorded by laser. This plate has this property that in the

case of being taken apart each part shows the complete image. Just like a piece of

mirror each part of which will be another mirror in the case of being broken.

4. Strange attraction Strange attractions are patterns that from a perspective or

different perspectives are disordered but from other perspective or perspective they

have order. The wider the point of view it will be more likely to find strange attraction

and the power of predicting will increase..

Etebarian, Akbar (2008), Organizational Change in terms of Chaos Theory, Tadbir

Journal, 8th year, number 190 [in persian] Hajikarimi, Babak (1390).

Chaos Theory and its Application in organizational Decision Making, Management

and Economy Quarterly, number 7, p 12-19. [in persian] Morgan,Garet.(1997),

Images of organization , Sage Publication