Can Anyone Explain 'The Butterfly Effect'...?

Question

...in their own words without using Wikipedia? And can anyone give me an example of how it works?

Thanks

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_e...  try that

Answer 2

It's when someone or something makes a change or is changed which is pretty small and doesn't really get noticed at that point, but it has huge effects on larger things that it is related to.

Answer 3

Are you referring to "The butterfly effect" or do you mean the film, "The butterfly effect"?

I'll guess you mean the chaos theory one?

Well it's basically that a small change in a system can have an impact on later events and start or prevent something occurring, the classic example refers to a butterfly flapping its wings eventually resulting in a hurricane or whatever.

You could also think about your everyday life:

You burn your toast at 7.42am

Setting your smoke alarm off

which makes your neighbours dog bark

Causing a cat to run into the road

Causing an already angry motorist to swerve and hit a mailbox

The angry motorist snaps and goes on a kill rampage

while the letter in the mailbox was a letter informing someone that they had a job interview.

The person doesn't make the interview but instead goes back to college and eventually becomes president!

*phew*

As opposed to you burning your toast at 7.41am and the dog having just decided to go for a whiz hasn't quite got out the door yet and so doesn't hear the alarm.

The butterfly effect in a basic way is the difference between 7.41 and 7.42.

So, your little burnt toast has more to it than you think!

Answer 4

All it means that small actions can have very large effects. we all live in a complex world, but we only really understand it when its follows simple rules.

An example:  If you great great great great grand mother did not meet your great great great great grand father on the bus on the way to blackpool then you would not exist and your son who might find the cure for cancer would not exist. Nor his daugther who starts world war three.

Answer 5

I like the answer given by "the voice............ "

Good example of butterfly effect. Another place that you get a good (Or at least funny) explanation is in Terry Pratchett's "Interesting times"

Answer 6

Computers are used to calculate future weather from current conditions.  Of course the current conditions cannot be measured absolutely exactly.  If you put slightly different starting conditions into the computer model you will often get very different results by running the model forward by a week or two (the chaos theory already referred to by other answerers).  The further you calculate into the future the more inaccurate the prediction becomes.  Ultimately you can suppose that the air movement caused by a butterfly's wing could result in a big change in future weather.

Answer 7

This expression came about when scientists were writing a computer program  to predict weather - the progra-ms were getting more and more complex and more and mor computer power was needed - 3 or 4 Cray Super Computers linked and still more elements were being added - sea temps jet stream the list went on and on.  They realised that anything could effect the weather A butterfly beating its wing in the Amazon rain forest - therefore the Butterfly Effect - the smallest events can have a major impact

Answer 8

Kill a butterfly today and you kill all its offspring and its offspring's offspring and all the animals that might have fed on them and so it goes on, building up until, a very small initial event has had huge, world-changing consequences in the long run......don't tread on butterflies.