Some notes on chaos opuscuw in homage to professor Roberto Torretti

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that in the realm of dynamical systems Chaos brings with it limits to knowledge and the possibility of forecasting the future. In a certain sense a Ljapunow horizon represents something insurmountable, which is why Joseph Ford, the well-known American Chaos theorist, called it the last complete mystery of the world. This statement does not seem far-fetched, since as long as classical mechanics is in force the possibility of long-term predictive computation only occurs in exceptional cases.