Instead of steady curves, nonlinear formulas generate wildly erratic, zigzagging lines. Few bothered to crunch these numbers because of the unpredictability of nonlinear equations makes the effort pointless. The great tragedy in this is the most natural phenomena are nonlinear. Much of physics, most of chemistry, and all of biology falls outside linear science. Chaos is not disorder, it is a higher form of order.
Chaos covers everything that seems to be disorderly but in fact adheres to underlying patterns.
The weather is a perfect example. A diseased heart beats with extreme regularity. It is the healthy heart that beats chaotically. Brain waves of the mentally healthy are chaotic, while those of an epileptic during a seizure are regular. Instead of viewing the body as a remarkably complex machine controlled by the brain, new scientists see a collection of 10,000 billion cells incessantly conversing via chemical messages.