In order to predict what a typical classical system will do after only a moderate period, one would have to determine its initial state to an impossibly high precision. Thus it is said that in principle, the flap of a butterfly’s wing in one hemisphere of the planet could cause a hurricane in the other hemisphere. The infeasibility of weather forecasting and the like is then attributed to the impossibility of accounting for every butterfly on the planet. However, real hurricanes and real butterflies obey quantum theory, not classical mechanics. The instability that would rapidly amplify slight
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