Back in 2003, Crystal Ives was a student at Oregon State in Physics 407 – Life, the Universe and Everything. It was a a class to discuss those borderland regions where modern science, philosophy, and theology merge.
During the class, Crystal wrote about Chaos Theory. It has circled the web for the last 13 years, but today I finally stumbled across it (perhaps, adding to the evidence of the theory?). As a meteorologist, one paragraph in the paper stuck out.
She wrote:
“A butterfly in a meadow flaps its wings and a storm is born on the Pacific Ocean. This classic example of a key aspect of chaotic systems is known as the “butterfly effect.” Chaotic systems have extraordinary sensitivity to internal conditions which makes them inherently unpredictable in the long term. In order to make an accurate prediction of weather patterns, one would have to know the precise details of everything that would have an effect on the system. Weather is such a sensitive system that the contributing factors are essentially infinite. Also, these infinite, tiny initial conditions are magnified in the system so that two nearly identical starting points will end up unrecognizably different. Thus, chaotic systems like the weather are unpredictable and the flapping of a butterfly’s wings gives rise to a storm.”
Sometimes even the perfect forecast isn’t perfect. Thanks to the Chaos Theory.
