Edward Lorenz had a question for the attendees of the American Association for the Advancement of Science around 45 years ago during the 139th meeting, "Can a butterfly from Brazil flapping its wings cause a tornado in Texas?" That question has answers that you probably never thought of.
This concept, known as the "butterfly effect", has been accepted by most cultures. The term is used to refer to exaggerated significance of small occurrences as replicated in the Havana movie (1990) that features Robert Redford as Jack Weil. In the play, he acts as a gambler with an overwhelming love for Math. While conversing with Lena, his costar, he jokes that a butterfly in China may flutter the wings leading to a Caribbean hurricane.
During his off the cuff remarks, he had a different intention. However, his listeners applied it in another way. As he later confided, he had wanted to illustrate the fact that certain systems with dynamic complexities often have unpredictable reactions. Such is the complexity that a small variance in an initial condition may lead to huge and unexpected outcomes on the systems. Systems are sensitive, leading to unpredictable outcomes. Since its introduction, this idea that forms a branch of Math referred to as "chaos theory", has been applied to numerous case scenarios.
Lorenz's perception brought fourth questions of laws that existed during the years of Isaac Newton around 1687. They suggested that nature had probability. In fact, he referred to it as a "clockwork universe". Lorenz also challenged Pierre Simon Laplace's assertion that unpredictability had no place in the world. He said that if indeed all the laws of nature were known, nothing, including the future would remain known to people.
Lorenz made several other discoveries. For example, he realized that imprecision inherent in measurement by humans was not determined by the way in which humans interpreted certain characteristics of nature. He observed that relationships between nature's cause-and-effect interdependence were rather complex for easy resolutions to be made. To gauge outcomes of certain complexities like patterns of weather, different starting conditions were set on parallel meteorological simulations. To generate weather forecasts for each day, these methods are still applied.
A question is posed, "If life were rerun from its inception, would everything remain the same?" This question is addressed through empirical analysis by Zachary Blount, who coined "Replaying Evolution". In an ongoing study that is running to 30 years, he researches on the role of minute differences in the substrate of evolution and outcome of the whole process.
Four individuals, that is, Justin Cheng, Jure Leskovec, Michael Bernetein and Christian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil explain in "Anyone can become a Troll" that ordinary people are likely to develop certain behavior patterns from the online platform depending on given circumstances. Yigit Menguc has a description in unique conditions where soft-bodied robots are given consideration. All the features present a complex system that denotes utility of chaotic theories that identify unpredictable outcomes.
Lorenz may have died in 2008, but his unparalleled contribution towards understanding of complex systems have remained. On May 23rd of this year, he would have celebrated his 100th Birthday. It therefore pays to pay homage to his ideas.
