Arvin Ash

What is the Butterfly Effect? How it could be true (2018x33)

Udgivelsesdato: Okt 16, 2018

What is the butterfly effect? The Real Butterfly Effect -- Imagine this scenario, a butterfly flutters its wings in Brazil, and it sets off a cascade of events over the course of time, which results in the touchdown of a tornado in Texas. This is the idea that lots of seemingly small chaotic differences in initial conditions can make a big difference over time and distance. Is this effect real? And if so, how does it work? Let’s look at this more closely. In 1972, meteorology professorEdward Lorenz asked the question at a conference: “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” This was really just a rhetorical question. Lorenz was trying to point out that large meteorological phenomenon, like tornadoes or hurricanes cannot be predicted far in advance, because there are too many small variables which are beyond our capability to measure. This is why tomorrow’s weather forecasts is much more accurate than a 10 day forecast. There are too many variables that can change over 10 days, whereas there are fewer variables that change in 1 day. In other words, Lorenz was trying to say that weather is unpredictable. He said this to illustrate the idea that some complex and dynamic systems have behaviors such that a small variance in the initial conditions could have a huge effect on the results. This idea in mathematics is part of the so called chaos theory - Meaning we don’t have a way to predict things even if we know all the variables. At least not yet. The butterfly in Brazil making a tornado in Texas is a dramatic way to illustrate this. Or is it? -- just for fun, let’s just see how that might work, if it was really possible. Let’s make it as realistic as possible. Instead of Brazil, picture a swarm of monarch butterflies that are migrating from Eastern Canada to Mexico for the winter. This by the way actually happens every year before the onset of winter. Tens of thousands of monarch butterflies do t