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The Butterfly Effect
What Exactly Is The Butterfly Effect?
Is The Butterfly Effect a real thing? The answer might
surprise you.
By Christopher
McFadden
Whilst Butterfly wings can
be used to do some amazing things, do they really have the power to change the
weather? The answer might surprise you.
Chaos is about to
ensue so hold on tight.
What is the Butterfly Effect simple explanation?
One
of the best ways to understand a complex idea is to make an easy-to-understand
metaphor.
In the case of Chaos Theory, the term
"The Butterfly Effect" was created to attempt just such a thing.
The
metaphor goes:
“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a
tornado in Texas?”
It isn't meant to
imply that this could actually happen, just that a small event, like this, at
the right time and place could, in theory, trigger a set of events that will
ultimately culminate in the formation of a hurricane on the other side of the
world.
This was coined by one Edward
Lorenz almost 45 years ago during the 139th meeting of the
Association for the Advancement of Science.
It would prove to be very
popular and has been embraced by popular culture ever since.
Lorenz was a meteorology
professor at MIT. He developed the concept but never actually intended for it
to be applied the way it has all too commonly been used.
Whilst
it sounds a little ridiculous as a concept, it is not meant to be taken
literally.
"The Butterfly Effect"
metaphor is simply meant to demonstrate that little insignificant events can
lead to significant results over time.
To
put it another way, small variances in initial conditions can have profound and
widely divergent effects on a system. Such chaotic systems are unpredictable by
their very nature.
This idea became the basis for a branch of mathematics known as Chaos Theory, which has
been applied in countless scenarios since its introduction.
This branch of mathematics has come to question some fundamental
laws of physics. Particularly those proposed by Sir Isaac Newton about the
mechanical and predictable nature of the Universe.
Similarly,
Lorenz challenged Pierre-Simon Laplace, who argued that unpredictability has no
place in the universe, asserting that if we knew all the physical laws of
nature, then “nothing would be uncertain
and the future, as the past, would be present to [our] eyes.”
Lorenz
was quick to point out one of the main problems we have is the imprecise nature
of our measurement devices for things like physical phenomena.
All we can ever hope to do,
therefore, is make an educated best guess or approximation of events.
This
is especially true for highly complex systems like weather patterns. Whilst
theories in other fields of science, like physics, try to model nature, in real life they are complex
systems.
Most
things in nature tend to be the result of many interconnected, and
interdependent, cause-and-effect relationships. This means they are
staggeringly complex and probably impossible to ever resolve adequately in
practice.
What is The Butterfly Effect for dummies?
The first thing to understand is that "The Butterfly
Effect" is just a metaphor for a field of mathematics called Chaos Theory.
Chaos Theory is, in effect, the science of surprises, the
nonlinear and the unpredictable. The theory teaches anyone who learns it that
we should come to expect the unexpected.
In this sense, it stands in
direct contrast with most other fields of science that tend to deal with
predictable patterns to provide accurate predictions of things.
After all, replicability and reliability of the scientific principle
are one of its foundations. Fundamental things like gravity, electricity, and
chemical reactions being prime examples.
Chaos
Theory, in this case, asks us to throw the idea of being able to predict things
with any real confidence out of the window - at least for highly complex
systems. It deals with the nonlinear that are, by their very nature, impossible
to predict or control with any real certainty.
It is
simply too impractical to ever know every data point in a system with perfect
precision. Plus we cannot go back to the very beginning of time to record and
track every data point.
We
simply can't know everything or
even ever hope to.
In
essence, we can only ever make a best guess approximation of such things. We
can never be 100% correct as even small starting differences could throw the
result off widely as the errors of any model, equation or algorithm, will
accumulate over time.
Turbulence,
weather, and even the Stock Market are such systems.
"As far as the laws of
mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are
certain, they do not refer to reality.” - Albert Einstein
Many
natural objects also tend to show the results of the complex interactions that
led to their creation. Things like landscapes, clouds, trees, and river systems
exhibit something called fractal properties.
Fractals
are never-ending patterns that tend to be infinitely complex
that also tend to be self-similar at different scales. They are created by
repeating a simple process over and over again in a feedback loop.
Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems –
the pictures of Chaos. If you look closely at nature you will quickly come
to see that it is a very common phenomenon.
By understanding that our
ecosystems, our social systems, and our economic systems are interconnected, we
can hope to avoid actions which may end up being detrimental to our long-term
well-being.
What is the origin of "The Butterfly Effect"?
"The
Butterfly Effect" is not a thing in and of itself. It is just a metaphor
for the principle of Chaos Theory.
More
technically, it is the "sensitive
dependence on initial conditions".
The term is often ascribed to Edward Lorenz who wrote about it
in a 1963 paper in the New York Academy of Sciences. But with a subtle
difference:
"One meteorologist
remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings would
be enough to alter the course of the weather forever."
By
the time of his now infamous talk at the 1972 American Association
for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. By this time the seagull had
been replaced with the now iconic butterfly.
The entire principle was born
out of the shock Lorenz had when trying to run
some weather models using deterministic equations on a
supercomputer.
In
theory, it should be fairly straight forward to input measurable factors like
temperature, pressure and wind velocity and have a supercomputer do some number
crunching to predict the weather in the future.
He input an initial set of data, switched the computer on, and
waited for the printout. Placing the output next to the machine, he decided to
re-enter some of the data and run the program longer.
But the results were widely different for the two. He soon
realized he'd made a very minor error during input on the second run which
yielded a drastically different outcome.
He had entered the initial condition 0.506 from
the printout instead of entering the full precision 0.506127 value.
Lorenz had an epiphany, and a
whole new field of mathematics was born - Chaos Theory.
Lorenz died in 2008, and it’s clear that his enduring
contribution to our understanding of complex systems was an important one.
Christopher McFadden
Author
Christopher graduated from Cardiff University
in 2004 with a Masters Degree in Geology. Since then, he has worked exclusively
within the Built Environment, Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental
Consultancy industries. He is a qualified and accredited Energy Consultant,
Green Deal Assessor and Practitioner member of IEMA. Chris’s main interests
range from Science and Engineering, Military and Ancient History to Politics
and Philosophy.
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