Some scientists see their work make headlines. But MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz watched his work become a catch phrase. Lorenz, who died in April, created one of the most beguiling and evocative notions ever to leap from the lab into popular culture: the "butterfly effect," the concept that small events can have large, widespread consequences. The name stems from Lorenz's suggestion that a massive storm might have its roots in the faraway flapping of a tiny butterfly's wings. Translated into mass culture, the butterfly effect has become a metaphor for the existence of seemingly insignificant moments that alter history and shape destinies. Typically unrecognized at first, they create threads of cause and effect that appear obvious in retrospect, changing the course of a human life or rippling through the global economy. In the 2004 movie "The Butterfly Effect" - we watched it so you don't have to - Ashton Kutcher travels back in time, altering his troubled childhood in order to influence the present, though with dismal results. In 1990's "Havana," Robert Redford, a math-wise gambler, tells Lena Olin, "A butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean. They can even calculate the odds." Such borrowings of Lorenz's idea might seem authoritative to unsuspecting viewers, but they share one major problem: They get his insight precisely backwards.

The larger meaning of the butterfly effect is not that we can readily track such connections, but that we can't. To claim a butterfly's wings can cause a storm, after all, is to raise the question: How can we definitively say what caused any storm, if it could be something as slight as a butterfly? Lorenz's work gives us a fresh way to think about cause and effect, but does not offer easy answers.

View: Full Article | Source: Boston Globe

The ButterFly Effect theory really interests me, it's really easy to get caught up in, for example the people who worked at the WTC before 9/11, the ones who missed their bus to work that day, or the people who missed there flights and are still alive today because of it, what if they decided to skip breakfast that morning? maybe they were late because they slept in for 10 extra minutes? What if they didnt?

I really didn't think the Butterfly Effect was an actual notion and not just a movie title. Interesting read though. It has that similar ideology to a situation that snowballs.

I've always thought it was a notion from a Ray Bradbury short story, in which the President elect goes on a hunting trip through a time machine. He's out to hunt a Trex. It's all explained that he has to stay on a certain path, only kill the marked one (its about to die anyways) becuase the time machine creators KNOW that the tiniest change in the past affects the future. Something goes wrong and the president elect goes off the path, steps on a butterfly. When he returns to the present he lost the election. Butterfly, Bradbury, I read this in the 70s I imagine he wrote it in the 60s. The MIT guy stole the idea from Bradbury.

I think of the butterfly effect, as a lake, if you drop a stone into a lake, it causes ripples, and those ripples will get larger and larger, therefore, the butterfly effect is when something small hapens that can effectively make bigger things in the future. That's why if we were to go to the past, and say, bend a blade of grass, we could change life as we know it in the present. That's why films like 'Back to the Future' is basically folly.




Thanks, wiihaward94

I think of the butterfly effect, as a lake, if you drop a stone into a lake, it causes ripples, and those ripples will get larger and larger, therefore, the butterfly effect is when something small hapens that can effectively make bigger things in the future. That's why if we were to go to the past, and say, bend a blade of grass, we could change life as we know it in the present. That's why films like 'Back to the Future' is basically folly.




Thanks, wiihaward94

Like "The Mule" I had assumed Bradbury was the father of the Butterfly Effect. I see Dr. Lorenz publish his theory in 1960 , so Bradbury probably read his work, and then wrote the story after.

Looks like I stand corrected. AGAIN! Shows I'm not as smart as I thought I was!

Wikipedia's article on the Butterfly effect covers what it actually is rather well. It was the birthplace of what's now become known as Chaos Theory.

From the Article:

So I may have been right! Thank you Tiggs.

Really I should have looked it up my self, but didn't. Mental Laziness.

Oh i remembered a movie that was something like this it's called "A Sound of Thunder" and it's about this company that can take people back to prehistoric time period where they could hunt a certain dinosaur they have marked, well when they go back in time, during a slight mishap, a man goes running off a path that they are designated to stand on and ends up stepping on a single rare species butterfly from the past, well when they return to the future, changes begin to happen in waves as it starts with the most simplest of matter to the most complex as time completely alters, a group of peoples job is to get to a time machine, go back and stop the person from ever stepping off the path to begin with.
This was also an interesting idea of the "Butterfly Effect", i recommend the movie, i loved the movie so much, i first read the short story and then decided to rent the movie.

A quick look at Wiki shows

A Sound of Thunder” is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952.

I, and Roger, were right the first time. Guy stole his idea from Bradbury.


thanks GA for remembering the movie name.

oh yeah ^-^

I think that story was also an episode on the Twilight Zone.

Yeah, see, I have that same problem. I read that same story, except the ending was different. Wow, that's weird. I should check my books... ; The guy stepped off a path, killed a butterfly and when he got back, everything was spelled/written differently. So I have always thought the butterfly effect had to do with the cause and effect of time travel. When the movie was announced, I was excited because I loved the story so much, but alas, it wasn't abt anyone going on a t-rex hunt.

Well, maybe that MIT guy stoled the idea or name of the idea from that story, else the idea had been around already and Bradbury took the idea a step further and wrote a story. Who knows?

I've read or watched most of these examples, but my favorite by far is the Simpsons episode. Homer with his toaster! "Stupid bug! You go squish now!" lol

Personally I don't really view the two as the same idea. Bradbury's story is specifically dealing with altering the past via time travel, and it just happens to be a butterfly that gets stepped on. They could have done the same thing with a footprint being made (or the guy brushing up against a plant, anything), some animal stopping briefly to sniff around said footprint and a predator ending its life when in the natural course of history it hadn't stopped at that spot and its slightly altered placement gave it the time it needed to avoid the predators attack.

While definitively similar, Lorenz idea is not based on time travel. Its simply the ripple effect, dropping a pebble in the lake could cause a wave on the other side. Its quite possible that he read the story and that got his mind working on the subject. But I think the correlation thats made is simply because of the shared butterfly.

The question is, if we travel back in time and convince Bradbury to make it a prehistoric dragonfly in his story instead. When we come back, will it be known as the dragonfly effect?