The Butterfly Effect

That stuff's really interesting.

You'll find most people can agree with The Chaos Theory.

the Butterfly Effect - the movie SUCKED!!!!!!

that movie was like Ashton Kutcher on his period!!

While the chaos theory is pretty far out there as far as things like whether prediction inaccuracy goes, in things like personal relationships you will find that often times when you meet people it is not simply "we were in class together all the time and it was inevitable that at some point we would speak to each other" but can often times be "I met so and so at a party and through that friendship i met so and so and at when I had to pick him up from work one day I met his co-worker so and so and we started going out, and her friend.... " and on and on...

I dont know if that qualifies exactly as following the butterfly effect , um, model but it does represent some of the same traits. well, many things in a relationship or potential relationship come down to a matter of one or two events that either hit things off or kill it and if your talking about a boyfriend girl friend type relationship... well you could end up living a totally different life based upon a few small things, basic get-to-know-you kind of conversation...

weird, i try not to think about it that much.

Yeah, Aston Kutcher is a wiener... i hate his ***** ass.

Originally posted by Raz
I'm afraid you're mistaken.

The butterfly effect is a theorem of chaos theory that small variations in the initial conditions of a dynamical system can produce large variations in the results.

And the name itself is based on a book that is quite similar to the movie, in that a time-traveller goes back to make small changes that have big effects.

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

I will follow that link and read the page I promise - once I get to work. But first let me try again:

The initial theory was this "ignore the beat of a wing and you cannot hope to map a storm" - it's been twisted by people who didnt understand it to mean "beating wings can cause storms!" - in fact the whole "wing beating" aspect came about by someone who didn't believe the theory saying "if it were true then that would mean a wingbeat could..etc..." as a mockery of the theory, not as a PROOF.

Now that second "meaning" gets quoted all over the place in the media, because it's sexy and weird, (and utter bloody nonsense) but NO physicist or anyone interested in Chaos theory will ever use it that way, because thats simply 1000% not what "the butterfly effect" means.

Worse yet - people take that second causal reaction "definition" and fail to understand that to the extent that it becomes "If the butterfly didnt beat its wing, the storm would never have happened...and I would never have met my wife"

None of this would ever have happened (HA!) if in an attempt to make the theory sound more poetic they had stopped saying "a seagulls wing" (which was how the model was originally described) and substituted butterfly (back in 1960something- dont quote me on that date?) - which lead people to suspect a link between the theory and Ray Bradburys short story "a sound of thunder" about how a butterfly dying in the past can change the future.... (Im a big Bradbury fan...The Martian Chronicles DVD in my "ARGH! my eyes thread!" is a Bradbury adaptation) which only confused the issue further.

In a nutshell - everyone is wrong but me! Me Me ME!!!!!!

Hey! the movie rocked! 😠

I believe in the butterfly effect because it has been proven that the universe is spacetime and this is like placing a pair of balls on a piece of taught fabric if u move one ball small waves in the fabric will travel to the other ball telling it which way to move

Umm...not sure why this is in the Philosophy forum, when its a scientific theory...moving to the GDF.

Mr Zero - I think you're wrong in assuming its about ignoring when its actually about subtle change. Not more to add really!

Ignoring? definetly not, that may sometimes be the cause, but often it's things that we do take note of.

Can a mod please rename it 'The Chaos Theory' ?!

I do believe in the butterfly effect..think back on a choice you made and what would happen if you made a different choice...The movie was cool.
It's a lesson learned.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Thats not called ''The Butterfly Effect'' its called the ''Chaos Theory'' by the way.

Whoa this is hard to wrap your head around lol. I haven't seen the movie but I've got the jist of it all

Originally posted by BlackC@t
It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a Typhoon halfway around the world.

Do you believe in The Butterfly Effect?

I do, I often find that the smallest choices I make lead to huge and disasterous consequences.

No I don't think so.It does not sound possible.JM 🙂

wat is the butterfly effect??

i once heard a rumor that a little boy was montain trekking. The boy walked along a steep gradient, lost his balance and rolled down. He was hanging at the edge of a cliff and was about to fall off to certain death. A man who happened to be doing some trekking on the same mountain side rushed to the boys crys. The man tied a harness with his rope and brought the boy to safety.

The boys name was adolf hitler. the man's brave effort landed grave consequences for europe and the world triggering a holocaust and war.

Adolf Hitler just walked about the Austrian Mountains as a lad?
Doubt it, he said himself most days he would sit outside a pub waiting for his father.

the universe is like a pond, and every occurance in it is like a small pebble thrown on its unmoving surface, when it hits the surface, it causes ripples of change, only these ripples grow with time instead of dying down, even the smallest of pebbles changes the future and the more time passes the greater the ripples and hence the greater the effect of even the smallest occurance. i believe that the butterfly effect is real but it takes time to change the world significantly.

eg, if u killed one of the daughters of adam n eve{assuming that they existed} it wudnt really have made much of a difference then but if u look at it from now, billions of people who were supposed to be born from her initial dna wud never be born, in turn the differences that they wud make in the lives wud not be present and the things done as reactions to those interactions or differences wud never be done, so in a sense the whole world evolves to a different form when even the smallest disturbance of even a single particle is made, the fate of the world changes with even the smallest pebble

clap

EXACTLY!!! I EXACTLY AGREE!!!

Now THAT makes sense

Originally posted by Mr Zero

None of this would ever have happened (HA!) if in an attempt to make the theory sound more poetic they had stopped saying "a seagulls wing" (which was how the model was originally described) and substituted butterfly (back in 1960something- dont quote me on that date?) - which lead people to suspect a link between the theory and Ray Bradburys short story "a sound of thunder" about how a butterfly dying in the past can change the future.... (Im a big Bradbury fan...The Martian Chronicles DVD in my "ARGH! my eyes thread!" is a Bradbury adaptation) which only confused the issue further.

Totally agree with Zero it's all about conditions and just a statement, not about the possibility of a tornado or something. We can see a parody of the story mentioned at a Simpsons Halloween special, when Homer builds his own time machine and little changes ends with different realities. The "butt effect" is just a kind of corollary (not even a real one) and not the core of the discipline.