Please explain the Butterfly Effect,?

Question

Please explain the Butterfly Effect,?

Answer 1

"Butterfly effect" refers to the enormous impact that a very small change or disturbance can have in the course of events. The term was coined by meteorologist Edward Lorenz, who observed that certain systems — such as the weather — cannot be successfully analyzed by conventional scientific methods since they show an extremely sensitive dependence on "initial conditions and minute but unpredictable variables." In a lecture in 1970, Lorenz posed the question as to whether the delicate motion of a butterfly's wings in the Amazon could cause a tornado over Texas.

James Gleick popularized the butterfly effect concept in his 1978 book "Chaos: Making a New Science," but quoted an old rhyme ("For want of a nail ... the kingdom was lost") in noting that the idea had been around for a long time.



Another version comes from Ray Bradbury's 1953 short story, "A Sound of Thunder," in which a hunter goes on a time-travel safari where the participants are forbidden to touch the ground and are allowed to pursue only animals destined to die at that time. After stepping accidentally onto the jungle floor, then returning to his own time, the hunter senses that changes have occurred. He subsequently discovers, on the sole of his boot, a single dead butterfly, "a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes, then big dominoes, and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time."

Answer 2

The butterfly effect means that a very small action like the fluttering of a butterfly might cause something much greater to occur.  The butterfly causes just enough of disturbance to start a thunderstorm or something like that.

Answer 3

it is an effect one says would occur when a butterfly flaps its wings somewhere a tornado results in a far  away place. though this is not happening exactly, this refers to a class of problems which belongs to non linear system classifications. there are some systems which could be described by a set of (or a single)diferential equations., but they cannot be solved to a satisfactory degree of accuracy at all.

usually a time varying diff equation is solved with some initial values known to us. in most diff-eqns solution for two initial values which are very close will also be close to each other after any given period of time. But inthis class  of problems even when two initial value points are very close the values after a certain amount of time will always be far apart each other . That means no matter how accurate your initial value is the end result after a certain period of time can always exceed our desired accuracy.

problems relating to climate changes , seismic activity fall into this category , That is why the probability of such events or accuracy is very difficult to predict.

But nature is not always violent it is most of the times robust and could nullify the butterfly flapping its wings.There is a theory called KAM theory (stands for kolmogorov-arnold - moser theorem) which expalins the robust nature of some systems with unstable initial value- final value  prediction.

fields of mathematics relevant are : Hamiltonian (classical) chaos, bifurcations , and chaos theory.

Mathematics has much scope to expand in this direction

Answer 4

There are some good answers here but I will try to put it briefly.  Yes, indeed, a butterfly can cause a hurricane to develop a few weeks later BUT chaos theory means that you don't know WHICH butterfly out of the millions that have flapped their wings.

Get it?

Answer 5

Consider this,

Every time a butter fly flaps its wings, there is a small air current created, the small air current can modify a path of a lot bigger air current in its vicinity, by say a few nanometers.

Now take a scale and draw a line. Rotate you scale by less than a fraction of a degree and draw another line. At first the two lines are indistinguishable but after a few meters the lines start to move apart.

So imagine what that little shift could do to winds blowing hundreds of miles! But this dosnt end with one wind shifting.

That shifted currecnt influences the nest current which in turn influences the next and so on and so forth. [amplification]

Thus the flaping of the wings of a butterfly could chance the course of the earths cimate forever!

on similar lines every time you shake you hand your disturb the stability of the universe. [conservation of linear momentum]

Answer 6

It deals with time and  I want to be on it.

Answer 7

its just a movie and its not real...

Answer 8

The butterfly effect often times pops up when considering time travel.  There a two schools of thought regarding the nature of time.  Time can either be linear or cyclical.  In the case of the butterfly effect time acts as a linear entity each event is the result of a previous one.  For example, if I drop a glass it will fall and break.  The pieces will bounce on the floor.  I will clean up the pieces.  Tomorrow, while walking on the floor I step on a piece of glass and my foot bleeds.  This is linear time.  To illustrate the butterfly effect, think of this: imagine if I were able to alter the instant in which i purchased the glass, causing me to not purchase it, would I still have an injured foot tomorrow?

For further reading on the theories behind the nature of time I suggest "Cyclical Serpent" by Paul Halpern.