What is the butterfly effect

Submitted by bosco on Wed, 12/03/2008 at 5:03am.

The butterfly effect is a theory closely linked to chaos theory, and was first proposed by Edward Norton Lorenz in 1961.

It basically examines and demonstrates the effects that seemingly small incidents can have on larger events at a later time. The famous example being that something as small as the fluttering of as butterflies wings could in theory be indirectly responsible for a tornado on the other side of the world.

Although the theory of the butterfly effect has its basis in mathematics, there are many applications in everyday life that can be observed. If most of us think about it there are many pivotal decisions in our lives that changed the entire future of what we became. As well as these seemingly large decisions there are millions of smaller decisions and circumstances we have no control over as well which shape the paths that our lives take.

For example a man goes to work in his car as usual, but his car breaks down half way there. As a result he misses giving a big presentation and subsequently doesn't get a promotion he was looking for. The end result might be that he languishes near the bottom rung of the company for another 5 years, and has substantial debt because of not earning much. This might put a strain on his relationship with his wife, and they then get divorced. This then affects his work and he gets fired a few weeks later. He then gets a different job entirely and finds a new love who he marries.

So as a result of this initial tiny decision (to drive his car to work), the mans life is changed forever. If for example rather than working initially, his car wouldn't start, then his day would have been entirely different. So in the second scenario he has to take the train to work, gives the presentation successfully and gets the promotion he wanted. As a result he is a lot happier and has no debt, meaning his relationship is more stable. He then goes on to have children with his wife, and eventually becomes the head of the company.

So because of one moment his life turns out completely differently, the butterfly effect in this case being that his car starting or not determined a whole sequence of events that got bigger and bigger. These aren't limited to just within our own lives either, they can be on a global scale. For example what if the man in the example became a world leader that started a war, or discovered the cure for cancer?.

Allow me to produce a striking example of the possibilities:
A man in 1894 Austria misses a train one night instead of catching it. As a result of missing this train the man never sits beside a beautiful whom in actuality he had sparked a conversation with. Because the two never meet each other the man never has the chance to take the woman out on a date and they never end up marrying or having children. Because they never have children, which would have been a boy by the name of Adolf Hitler, their kid never grows up to become an infamous tyrant who started World War two and caused the deaths of over 60 million people. Because World War two never happened two immigrants from Poland would never have left their War torn country and the sons and daughters they would have had would never be born. Now you see the consequential effects of how a man missing a train could save the lives of 60 million people.

So the examples of this theory are all around us and are happening all the time, every single day, whether we can see or notice them or not. Something you might do today might affect what you do tomorrow and etc, until the whole world is different. Of course there is no way to counteract any of this, because it is simply how the present affects the future.

Another easy way to look at it is the domino effect. All you do is take the little effort to push that first domino, yet in doing this you cause a chain reaction that results in the collapses of hundreds of dominoes. In actuality, ever decision in your life, big or small, can change the outcome of your future. Whether or not you take karate lessons or whether or not you muster up enough courage to ask out that girl can have a serious impact, through chain reactions, on the rest of your life.