Chaos in the Real World

In the real world, there are three very good examples of instability: disease, political unrest, and family and community dysfunction. Disease is unstable because at any moment there could be an outbreak of some deadly disease for which there is no cure. This would cause terror and chaos. Political unrest is very unstable because people can revolt, throw over the government and create a vast war. A war is another type of a chaotic system. Family and community dysfunction is also unstable because if you have a very tiny problem with a few people or a huge problem with many people, the outcome will be huge with many people involved and many people's lives in ruin. Chaos is also found in systems as complex as electric circuits, measles outbreaks, lasers, clashing gears, heart rhythms, electrical brain activity, circadian rhythms, fluids, animal populations, and chemical reactions, and in systems as simple as the pendulum. It also has been thought possibly to occur in the stock market.