4 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
I think this is a misinterpretation. Chaos Theory is not used in the story to explain how the dinosaurs escaped, it is used to point out a flaw in Hammond's ego. The book contains a type of fractal, called a Dragon Curve where you start with a line, make some changes based on simple instructions, and repeat the pattern. Soon the pattern becomes more complex than you would have thought given the starting instructions.
Hammond believes that he has a perfect simple plan, and instead he has something that is completely out of his control. The park is a deterministic system that appears to be in control, it will appear to behave predictably until it breaks down and appears to behave randomly.
Comment by Cosmologicon at 25/07/2014 at 17:56 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Behaving unpredictably in a chaotic sense is not necessarily a problem. Just because you can't predict the exact value of a system doesn't mean it's destined for eventual catastrophe. Well designed systems just need to be able to handle a range of conditions.
Take the logistic map, a chaotic system whose exact value can't be reliably predicted far into the future. However, its value is always between 0 and 1. You don't need to worry about it suddenly becoming 73 or i or rutabaga. As long as you can handle all values between 0 and 1, the fact that it's chaotic is not an issue.