"The Butterfly Effect" by Alan C

 

Do you ever think about how minute, seemingly insignificant changes can impact the future? Usually we believe that only significant changes will translate to significant impact, but the Butterfly Effect tells otherwise. To put this concept into context, I'll have you imagine a scenario. Let’s say you are walking at the mall one day and find $10. You are so excited because you were broke but now you can actually buy something. You soon realize that consumerism is for losers and you instead invest that $10 into a bean company. A couple days later, scientists discover that beans can be used as fuel. Your $10 has now turned into 2.5 million dollars. You buy 176,678.44523 big macs and 66.37 Kia Souls, completely spending all of your earnings. You live in peace and harmony with your big macs and Kia Souls, until you have to file your taxes. You now owe the US government $250,000, so you move to Mexico, bringing with only 1 Kia Soul and 4 big macs. Although that $10 seemed small in the moment, it led to big changes in the future.

 

Now that you are able to conceptualize the idea of the Butterfly Effect, I can explain the origin of the theory itself. Edward Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist, was the first to discover what we now know of as the Chaos Theory. The definition of Chaos Theory from Britannica is, “in mechanics and mathematics, the study of apparently random or unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws.” The Chaos Theory is a set of highly sensitive conditions which allow the butterfly effect to occur. In simple terms, The chaos theory is the set of dominos, and the butterfly effect is the first one being tipped over. So why is it called the “butterfly” effect? Lorenz had proposed a metaphorical example that a hurricane on one side of the world could be influenced by the flapping of a butterfly’s wings from the opposite side of the world. It is quite clear that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings itself cannot cause a hurricane, but it is merely a factor in the grand course of events that had taken place leading to the final specific outcome of a hurricane.

 

So the question stands, does the butterfly effect have anything to do with what is reality, or is it simply an abstract concept? Think about your own life. Would you even be here if your parents didn’t happen to be in the right place at the right time? What events took place that led you to go to this school and to be in this English class? Every decision that you have taken in your life has led you to read this sentence, and you reading this sentence may change your future in an unprecedented way. A single decision that you take would lead you down a different reality. It's kinda like you are going down a single branch of a tree with unlimited branches. Whether or not you believe the butterfly effect is true ultimately depends on your view of the world. If you believe in fate, per say, you think that everything is predestined and that any decision made was always meant to happen, regardless of anything. But to come to a general conclusion, we can say that not every single insignificant decision will lead to a significant outcome, but instead any random insignificant decision has the potential to lead to a larger, more significant event.

Bibliography

“Chaos Theory.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/science/chaos-theory.

 

“Edward Lorenz, Father of Chaos Theory and Butterfly Effect, Dies at 90.” MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, news.mit.edu/2008/obit-lorenz-0416.