The Butterfly Effect

 

A man who travelled in time saw chaos the future and decided to change a determining event when he returned to the present. To his surprise despite preventing the assassination of a world leader in the present, the future chaos was worse. This is a story about the butterfly effect of chaos theory.

In mathematics, from chaos theory, butterfly effect refers to a phenomenon whereby small changes alter the final results a large extent. It is a theory propagated by Edward Lorenz after his findings about how decimal points affected weather predictions significantly. 

The butterfly effect shows dependence on initial conditions. The name was generated from the thought  of how a butterfly’s flap can change the location, increase or decrease the intensity or either stop or create a tornado. Edward Lorenz used a butterfly because of suggestions from friends. Not only butterflies disturb weather or other motions on earth surface.

Recurrence and initial conditions are needed to calculate predictions of chaotic motion like the weather. For weather, initial conditions are difficult to be accurately known, this makes the application of butterfly effect somewhat wrong in weather.

While it has been popularized in movies and other media, butterfly effect only suggests to human imagination that little changes can alter fate or future occurrences. But in truth, we get it wrong because-“...nature itself defies this expectation.” - Peter Dzikes.