Finding simplicity within complexity: Engineer develops method that can predict behavior, improve weather forecasting

Picture a tall stately grandfather clock, its long pendulum swinging back and forth, over and again, keeping rhythm with the time. Scientists can describe that motion with an equation, or dynamical model, and though there are seemingly hundreds of factors contributing to the sway, (the weight of the clock, the material of the pendulum, ad infinitum) there is only one variable necessary to describe the motion of the pendulum and translate it into math: the angle of the swing.