Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect is linked to chaos theory. This theory says that the insect’s vibration in Hong Kong can trigger a whole storm in New York. It is a non-deterministic system with small changes that can lead to wildly different consequences. Initially, it starts with a small disturbance. Through an amplification process, this small disturbance can generate a considerable effect in the medium and short term.

The disorderly movement of stars, the movement of plankton in the seas, the delay of planes, the synchronization of neurons, etc. All these chaotic or dynamic non-linear systems can trigger some divergent effects in the short or medium term. Chaos theory and the butterfly effect explain that something as complex as the universe is totally unpredictable. The universe is a flexible chaotic system. Chaos theory explains how atmospheric weather conditions preclude predictions when reliable weather is beyond 3 days.

The butterfly effect is usefully used to address studies of social phenomena that are difficult to resolve in terms of linear cause-and-effect relationships. It can be said that small things can have a considerable effect over time. If we take this to a personal level, we can see that the inclusion of countless habits in our life can trigger other consequences.

Butterfly effect areas

The butterfly effect can be applied in many areas. It can serve as the main basis in various literary works or be part of relevant theories and more controversial and popular scientific paradigms, such as chaos theory. And it is that the butterfly effect holds a symbolism that can be applied to different realities.

Given that a certain action or situation can lead to a series of successive situations or actions that end up causing a considerable effect that does not seem to correspond to the situation of the element that initiated it. Given that if only the initial cause and the final consequence are analyzed, there may not be much correlation between them. However, the initial small action is the one that started to trigger other smaller effects, but which had a cumulative effect over time. This is how effect after effect reached the final consequence.

The concept of the butterfly effect began with the experiments of meteorologist Edward Lorenz. This meteorologist coined the term butterfly effect in 1973 due to the impossibility of being able to make fully reliable long-term weather forecasts. This is due to the fact that the action of several variables capable of modifying atmospheric behavior accumulates in the climate.

When we talk about an atmospheric system and the possibility of precipitation, many variables must be analyzed. Variables that have a value that depends on other variables in question. For example, the temperature in a region will depend on the inclination with which the sun’s rays arrive from space. This, in turn, depends on the moment of the translational movement that our planet is in relation to the orbit of the sun. Therefore, temperatures do not depend only on what we have mentioned, but on other variables such as the action of the wind, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the relative humidity of the air, etc.

Since each variable, in turn, has a direct or indirect dependence on other variables, a kind of chaos is formed that is very difficult to predict after a certain time.

Chaos theory

All this explains to us that chaos theory is present in the butterfly effect. And this tells us that alterations that may apparently be simple or innocuous of a variable or a concrete action, can generate massive effects. The first variable or the first action is the one that triggers the process that causes the rest of the variables to propagate the effects until the final consequence is reached. This procedure is gaining more and more force.

This chaos is at the origin of the popular saying that a butterfly fluttering in Hong Kong can cause a hurricane in New York. This means that the slightest change in the same process can lead to very different and even totally unexpected results. The butterfly effect is often seen as a metaphor or analogy that is used as one of the pillars of chaos theory. Chaos theory was also originated by Edward Lorenz. According to this meteorologist, there are systems in the universe that are highly sensitive to the presence of variations. All these variations can present very diverse but limited results in a chaotic and unpredictable way.

The main model of chaos theory proposes that faced with two identical worlds or situations in which there is only one and almost insignificant variable that differentiates them, over time and progress, other differences may arise that will make the worlds increasingly different. more different from each other. That is, let’s take an easy example. We put two planets Earth with the same conditions since it was created, but in one we put a little more than the average temperature. Although it is a small variable, the fact that a planet has a few degrees above the average temperature of the other can condition that, over thousands of years, life can develop in a different way.