In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.
Although the butterfly effect may appear to be an esoteric and unlikely behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill may roll into any of several valleys depending on, among other things, slight differences in initial position.
The butterfly effect is a common trope in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with hypotheses where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes.
Read more about Butterfly Effect: Origin of The Concept and The Term, Illustration, Theory and Mathematical Definition, Examples
Other articles related to "butterfly effect, butterfly, effect":
... even without personal interaction, while allowable, would cause a "butterfly effect" in the timeline ... This has been coined the "timeline corruption hypothesis." The 2004 film The Butterfly Effect and the Multiverser RPG system prefer this view ... story "A Sound of Thunder", in which the butterfly effect is caused by a real butterfly ...
... The Butterfly Effect 3 Revelations is a 2009 science-fiction psychological thriller film directed by Seth Grossman that is the third film in the Butterfly Effect franchise ...
... gothic metal band Moonspell refers to the concept in their 1999 experimental album The Butterfly Effect ... French Singer Bénabar wrote a song called "l'effet papillon" ( "the Butterfly effect") referring loosely to the concept on his 2008 album Infréquentable ... The Spanish band La Oreja de van Gogh touches on the effect in their song "Mariposa" ...
... The butterfly effect is most familiar in terms of weather it can easily be demonstrated in standard weather prediction models, for example ... for sensitive dependence on initial conditions (the butterfly effect) has been studied in a number of cases in semiclassical and quantum physics including atoms in strong fields and the anisotropic Kepler problem ... Other authors suggest that the butterfly effect can be observed in quantum systems ...
1998) (2011) BUtterfield 8 (1960) Butterflies Are Free (1972) The Butterfly Effect (2004) The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006) The Butterfly Effect 3 Revelations (2009 ...
Famous quotes containing the word effect:
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)