The Science Book

296

THE BUTTERFLY

EFFECT

EDWARD LORENZ (1917–2008)

M

uch of the history of

science has been

devoted to developing

simple models that predict the

behavior of systems. Certain

phenomena in nature, such as

planetary motion, lend themselves

readily to this schema. With a

description of the initial

conditions—the mass of a planet,

its position, velocity, and so on—

future configurations can be

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Meteorology

BEFORE

1687 Newton’s three laws of

motion hold that the universe

is predictable.

1880s Henri Poincaré shows

that the motion of three or

more bodies interacting

gravitationally is generally

chaotic and unpredictable.

AFTER

1970s Chaos theory is used

to model traffic flow, digital

encryption, function, and in

designs for cars and aircraft.

1979 Benoît Mandelbrot

discovers the Mandelbrot set,

which shows how complex

patterns can be created using

very simple rules.

1990s Chaos theory is

thought of as a subset of

complexity science, which

seeks to explain complex

natural phenomena.

According to Newton’s

laws, the universe can

be predicted.

But no matter how

accurate our data, it is

impossible to replicate

a pool break...

Calculating the

trajectories of pool

balls after a break should

be possible if we have all

the data about the

balls and table.

These minute

uncertainties forbid us

from knowing how a

system will change.

Accurate predictions

of chaotic phenomena

are impossible.

...because the

many, tiny differences

in the initial setup will cause

the final distribution of

balls to vary wildly.