Chaos Theory

After a revolutionary tamil movie that hit the screen 100 days back, this theory shouldn't look alien to anyone. I'm also among that group of people who went crazy on watching it, came back home and googled about the theory to know more. As a general rule, it is always the practical knowledge that enables us to understand the implications of any subject. More than reading from any book or watching some movie, the concepts become more inveterate if we can relate it to a real-life example, some day to day activity that perfectly follows the tenets established by the concept. Suppose we pick up today's newspaper and read that the stock market indices plummeted to a never-seen-before threshold, it doesn't tag along with it any impact. But if the same had happened with you buying lots of shares on the previous day, you better buy lot of water cans at home to cope with the stress. Therefore, if something has an impact in our life, that is when we understand the real significance and implications of its source or cause.
Chaos theory essentially deals with a past-present-future relationship. It characterizes the behaviour of certain systems, mainly dynamic ones. The very existence of this theory is characterized by disorder. An important postulate of this theory is the Butterfly Effect. Butterfly effect refers to the behaviour of dynamic systems that are sensitive to their initial conditions. The effect refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. In simple terms, something that may seem very insignificant now might have a huge impact later.
I got my passport issued in the year 1998 in Nairobi, Kenya. It was valid for ten years from then. The stipulated expiry date was 6.9.2008. I never even thought of how 2008 would be like then, but now it happened to be the year in which i'm going to take all the graduate examinations that demand for the passport. And I never bothered to think about it a little before. So i had planned to give my exam in September. But because of this passport renewal crap, I was forced to give my exam before 6th. And because of this, I had to give TOEFL on 24th of August itself, breaking the cliche surrounding the order in which the exams are generally taken. I booked for TOEFL just a week before 24th. The centers in Trichy and Chennai where full already. So i was forced to book my exam in Coimbatore. A five hour bus journey from Trichy to Coimbatore that began with an accident during the onward journey ended with the return journey that left me drenched in rain, feeling the cold while breathing. All this had to happen one day before the first set of cycle tests. I reached college at one in the night, extremely exhausted after the boring 4 hour exam and the equally boring five hour journey. With the first exam of the semester twelve hours away, i cudnt do anything but to snore away. The outcome? Messed up marks.
All this grueling predicaments because of that date that is printed in my passport! The date that had no significance initially proved vital in deciding everything this semester. If only there was some leeway, so much of turmoil would have been avoided. I'm feeling the chaos already!

Partial Courtesy: Wikipedia