Butterfly effect

Point attractors in 2D phase space. For other uses, see Butterfly effect (disambiguation). The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. This is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position. The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or, for that matter, prevent a tornado from appearing). The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. Recurrence, the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions, together with the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, are the two main ingredients for chaotic motion. They have the practical consequence of making complex systems, such as the weather, difficult to predict past a certain time range (approximately a week in the case of weather).

Contents
[hide]

1 History 2 Illustration 3 Mathematical definition 4 Popular media 5 See also 6 External links 7 References

[edit]

History
Sensitive dependence on initial conditions was first described in the literature by Hadamard and popularized by Duhem's 1906 book. The term butterfly effect is related to the work of Edward Lorenz, who in a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences noted that "One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings could change the course of weather forever." Later speeches and papers by Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly. According to Lorenz, upon failing to provide a title for a talk he was to present at the 139th meeting of the AAAS in 1972, Philip Merilees concocted Does the flap of a butterflys wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? as a title. [edit]

Illustration
The butterfly effect in the Lorenz attractor z coordinate (larger) time 0 t 30 (larger)

These figures show two segments of the three-dimensional evolution of two trajectories (one in blue, the other in yellow) for the same period of time in the Lorenz attractor starting

at two initial points that differ only by 10-5 in the x-coordinate. Initially, the two trajectories seem coincident, as indicated by the small difference between the z coordinate of the blue and yellow trajectories, but for t > 23 the difference is as large as the value of the trajectory. The final position of the cones indicates that the two trajectories are no longer coincident at t=30. A Java animation of the Lorenz attractor shows the continuous evolution. [edit]

Mathematical definition
A dynamical system with evolution map ft displays sensitive dependence on initial conditions if points arbitrarily close become separate with increasing t. If M is the state space for the map ft, then ft displays sensitive dependence to initial conditions if there is a >0 such that for every point x M and any neighborhood N containing x there exist a point y from that neighborhood N and a time such that the distance

The definition does not require that all points from a neighborhood separate from the base point x. [edit]

Popular media
The concept of the Butterfly effect is sometimes used in popular media dealing with the idea of time travel, usually inaccurately. In the 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury, "A Sound of Thunder", the killing of a butterfly during the time of dinosaurs causes the future to change in subtle but meaningful ways: e.g., the spelling of English, and the outcome of a political election. According to the actual theory, however, the mere presence of the time travelers in the past would be enough to change short-term events (such as the weather), and would also have an unpredictable impact on the distant future. In the Simpsons Halloween episode, Time and Punishment, Homer travels back to the time of dinosaurs with a time machine ( la Bradbury's story). While there, Homer commits intentional and unintentional violence in the past, which drastically changes the future (i.e., Homer's present). In many cases, minor and seemingly inconsequential actions in the past are extrapolated over time and can have radical effects on the present time of the main characters. In the movie The Butterfly Effect, Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), when reading from his adolescent journals, is able to essentially "redo" parts of his past. As he continues to do this, he realizes that even though his intentions are good, the actions he takes always have unintended consequences. However, this movie does not seriously explore the implications of the butterfly effect; only the lives of the principal characters seem to

change from one scenario to another. The greater world around them is mostly unaffected. Another movie which explores the butterfly effect (though not advertised as such) is Sliding Doors. The movie observes two parallel life paths of a woman named Helen, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. These two paths diverge when Helen attempts to catch a commuter train. In one life path she catches the train, and in another she is delayed for just a few seconds and barely misses the train. This results in two dramatically different sets of events. The Butterfly effect was also invoked by fictional mathematician Ian Malcolm in both the novel and film versions of Jurassic Park. He used it to explain the inherent instability of (among other things) an amusement park with dinosaurs as the attraction - although this interpretation can also be taken to mean that zoo animals will always escape and kill their captors. [edit]

See also

Chaos theory Dynamical systems

[edit]

External links

Butterfly Effect (Mathematical Recreations) From butterfly wings to single e-mail (Cornell University) New England Complex Systems Institute - Concepts: Butterfly Effect The Chaos Hypertextbook. An introductory primer on chaos and fractals. The Butterfly Effect. New Line Cinema's feature film The Butterfly Effect IMDB Eric W. Weisstein, Butterfly Effect at MathWorld. Direct Intervention Engine. An humorous art project by monochrom dealing with the Butterfly Effect.

[edit]

References

Robert L. Devaney (2003). Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems. Westview Press. ISBN 0813340853. Robert C. Hilborn (2004). "Sea gulls, butterflies, and grasshoppers: A brief history of the butterfly effect in nonlinear dynamics". American Journal of Physics 72: 425427.