 where the “almost all” caveat is understood as applying for all points in state space except a set of measure zero. Here, \(\lambda\) is interpreted as the largest global Lyapunov exponent (see the   Appendix)  and is taken to represent the average rate of divergence of neighboring trajectories issuing forth from some small neighborhood  centered around \(\bx(0)\). Exponential growth is implied if \(\lambda \gt 0\) (convergence if \(\lambda \lt 0)\). In general, such growth cannot go on forever. If the system is bounded in space and in momentum, there will be limits as to how far nearby trajectories can diverge from one another.