A property of some non-linear dynamic systems which exhibit
sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This means that
there are initial states which evolve within some finite time
to states whose separation in one or more dimensions of state
space depends, in an average sense, exponentially on their
initial separation. Such systems may still be completely
only on the initial conditions and the equations describing
the change of the system with time. It may, however, require
arbitrarily high precision to actually calculate a future
state to within some finite precision.
["On defining chaos", R. Glynn Holt
computers, may actually introduce chaotic dependence on
initial conditions due to the accumulation of rounding errors
(which constitutes a non-linear system).
(1995-02-07)