The butterfly effect is a term that a lot of people are familiar with, thanks to its extensive use in the modern culture. The main idea behind the effect is that small, barely noticeable changes in the system can cause drastic changes on the global scale. Though the concept has been used extensively in movies, books and other forms of media, its modern origins are purely scientific. The term was coined by a famous mathematician Edward Lorenz, who discovered it while working on his weather forecast system. So, what has he learned exactly and how this effect could be applied to other systems and scenarios in real life?
The butterfly effect also has a more scientific, “serious” name - sensitive dependence on initial conditions. So, how exactly did Lorenz discovered the effect? Well, like many other scientific breakthroughs, the discovery of the butterfly effect could be attributed to pure chance, an unpredictable change in calculations.
For centuries, scientific world operated under one important condition: measurements could never be perfect. It’s impossible to include all microscopic variables when you create equations or theories. So, the standard model of physics, the one that we currently utilize, is the one that is an approximation of real world, but not a 1:1 model of it. As one professor said: “The basic idea of Western science is that you don’t have to take into account the falling of a leaf on some planet in another galaxy when you’re trying to account for the motion of a billiard ball on a pool table on Earth. Very small influences can be neglected” (Gleick, 1987) For the most part, this notion is true. With a weather forecast simulations that Lorenz conducted, though, some holes in the hypothesis were found.
Earlier calculations that Lorenz performed gave him results that he expected to see. The wind movement simulation had predictable patterns that match those we’d see in a real world. However, one day in 1961, Lorenz took a shortcut. He started the simulation not from the beginning but in the midway, filling the initial conditions of the simulation from a printout that he got from a previous run. The results of a new simulation diverged from a previous one. What was the cause? It was not a hardware malfunction; it was a difference in numbers. Computer stored six decimals: .506127. On the other hand, on the printout, to save the space, only three appeared: .506. The seemingly small difference in three numbers, many places after the coma, have caused the whole system to go haywire. The discovery, in turn, laid a foundation for the butterfly effect.
Lorenz discoveries have ignited a discussion in the scientific world, where the butterfly effect (also known as the chaos theory) was applied to other fields of research. One of the most interesting application of the chaos theory is in the ecology. Dr. Arnie Gotfryd has made a few discoveries in the matter.
For a moment, imagine a mechanism of any kind. Like a clock, for example. The more moving parts the mechanism has, the more it’s prone to the failure. It’s hard to break a one giant solid cog, but when your clock has a variety of microscopic, interconnected gears, the system itself becomes more unstable. Mechanism analogy could be applied to our world. Even more now than ever, because the Earth nowadays is the global organism. In the past, there were fewer people and many countries could survive on its resources, without even knowing if there’s another country on the other side of the globe. Today, it’s more complicated than that. With the overpopulation and depletion of the resources, countries rely on the trade between each other to provide resources for themselves. With the system as vast and interconnected as the modern Earth, the butterfly effect has a serious, real application.
Looking at Canada as an example, Arnie Gotfryd meditates on the events Canada has experienced due to climate changes, caused by global warming. He looks at Atlantic Provinces, which experienced severe migrations of people towards urban centers, due to dwindling fisheries and coastal flooding. Those migrations, while understandable, can put a lot of economic pressure on cities that accept migrants. This is a perfect example of the chaos theory if we fracture the migration into a multitude of events. One man decides for himself that his living conditions are unsatisfactory. Therefore he decides to migrate, to seek a better life. His actions, perhaps, influence other people to do the same and to follow in his steps. Snowflake never thinks it’s responsible for an avalanche, but an avalanche is made out of millions of them. In a global world, actions of one man carry a much larger significance than they did previously.
The butterfly effect is a peculiar theory that has a good application for our day to day lives. We, as a species, should always be aware of the weight our actions carry and live our lives according to it. If every person on the Earth dropped the belief that actions of one do not matter, and started to live more aware of the state of his environment, we could build a better future to live in. As always, it’s better to have a proactive stance, rather than a reactive one.
Works Cited
Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking.
Gotfryd, A. Human Adaptation to Climatic Impacts on Biodiversity.
