Re: Chaos theory has nothing to do with it
The computer can only store a number accurate to 15 decimal places. It rounds off any number with 16 decimal places to the 15th decimal place. It does the same thing every time it performs a calculation. After only a few thousand calculations the cumulative effect grows and grows until numbers are only truely accurate to the 1st or 2nd decimal place. A few thousand more calculations and the algorithm fails.
Can't imagine how they do trillions of calculations accurately. Perhaps they use symbolic mathematics rather than numerical calculations.