Chaos

There has been a popular phenomenon in media called the Butterfly Effect. It reveals how a butterfly flapping its wings in China could cause a hurricane in Florida. Okay, so it is not as simplistic as to link the cause and effect directly, to be clear. The butterfly is not some magical creature. It is more about how a small variation in a complex system can cause radical effects.  

This effect came upfront when in 1963 an MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz was using an old computer to calculate weather patterns. He was working on a simulation of weather patterns and placed the data into the system. At his first attempt, he entered the initial data values up to six decimal places. However, on the second run of the system, he assumed that the significant figure doesn’t hold much of significance (Pun intended) he entered up to the three decimal places. Both the simulations were running on the same data; the only difference was after the three decimal places. 

However, this small change made the results remarkably different. To paint a clearer picture, say if the first simulation, with 6 decimal places, predicted a sunny day. The second run, with 3 decimal places’, the prediction was a hurricane. It is intuitive to think that if we change a little data input, in the beginning, this would lead to only a little change in the resultant data output. However, this is not the case in a chaotic system. 

A chaotic system is highly sensitive to initial conditions. These systems do follow the same laws of physics, however, due to a large number of constraints, it appears to be random. As the numbers of moving components in any system increase the calculation and prediction of the path, that the system takes become, well, chaotic. The turbulent system is an example of such systems. 

The Chaos theory attempts to find patterns in chaos. The model by Edward Lorenz is called Lorenz System. On plotting the graph of this model resembles spread-out wings of a butterfly, ergo the term butterfly effect. 

Nonetheless, the idea of it being linked to a butterfly flapping its wings seems more appealing to start the conversation about it. As a butterfly flaps its wings it sets up the air molecules in motion. Those molecules further strike other molecules, and this initiates a domino effect. Depending upon the system, this could potentially lead to the onset of a hurricane. The flutter of wings is similar to the variation in the data of the Lorentz's system. 

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