Have you ever sat back and wondered about the consequences of the actions you have or will make in the future? Few people today have thought of such things and even fewer still are the people who have heard of what is known as the 'Chaos Theory'. The 'Chaos Theory' was compiled together over many years but several different sciences and over many different fields of study. The 'Chaos Theory' that most people are familiar with is a phrase that sums up all the study and all the years into one easy to understand meaning. The phrase most widely known today as the 'Chaos Theory' is: "Something as simple as a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tsunami halfway across the world". What the phrase means is that no matter how small the actions or choices we make, or what we perceive as small, can have major consequences or drastically alter our future. There are many times during history where this has proven true, both positive and negative. Some of them only slightly and others quite radically. One man, by the name of Huo Yuanjia, changed all of China with a simple act that he did for his entire life. Born January 18, 1868 in Tianjin, he watched his father, Huo Endi, trained many students in his own form of martial arts, or wushu, known as Mizongyi. During that time China was torn by wars and came to be referred to as 'The Sick Man of the East'. Several people and fighters from other countries came in as the governments of other countries attempted to split and colonize China. A British boxer named Hercules O'Brien sent an open challenge to the people of Shanghai. Word reached Huo Yuanjia in Tianjin. He challenged and defeated the British boxer in front of a large, predominately Chinese, crowd. Word spread across China and the people began coming together as one. Huo Yuanjia died August 9, 1910 from Arsenic Trioxide, which was used in both medications and poisons in that time. Throughout his life he fought in countless bouts and won fight after fight and all of them were irrelevant until the day he fought Hercules O'Brien. After his victory in 1909 he and his friend, Nong Jinsun, came together and founded the Chin Woo Athletic Association. His death, to this day, is controversial but one thing is for sure. That simple fight in Shanghai united all of China and to this day they are still a world power. Most everyone today knows Sir Thomas Isaac Newton and all the studies and theories that he had come up with. The most widely known and recognized study was that of gravity. Most everyone knows how that study came about but no one thinks about the simplicity of where it all started. Born prematurely on January 4, 1463, though some speculate that he was in fact born on December 25, 1642 since England hadn't converted to the Gregorian calendar. His father died three months later and his mother remarried. It is said that Isaac hated his step father and as he grew up he never married anyone because he was too focused on his studies. One day something very intriguing caught his attention, an apple fell from a tree. Some say he was just walking by or happened to be standing in the vicinity of the tree and some even speculate that the apple fell and hit him on the top of his head. No matter the cause a simple and natural occurrence of an apple falling from a tree branch sparked his research on gravitational force which is still a major part of science today. Today, most everyone takes everything for granted. People come up with and make inventions to help simplify things and make our lives easier. Something was invented years ago by a normal man to do one specific job. Over the years the idea he made has been taken and used for many different jobs. If you told someone before 1439 that you could mass produce books they would have probably laughed at you. A man by the name of Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press which allowed him to mass produce books for mobile learning and then later mass produced
