Edward Lorenz and the Chaotic Butterflies

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Most people have heard of the Butterfly Effect, although not everyone fully understands the concept behind the now-famous quote about a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and subsequently setting off a tornado in Texas. Tiny changes in a system dramatically affecting the course of much larger events was demonstrated by a mathematician and meteorologist named Edward Lorenz. It was an accidental discovery, but like the concept itself, it led to something much larger—something that has been called one of the twentieth century’s great revolutions in the physical sciences: chaos theory.

Lorenz began his career working for the U.S. military during World War II as part of the effort to forecast atmospheric conditions for flying bombers so that they could both navigate accurately and hit their intended targets with precision. At the time, scientists, excited by the new technology available in computers and artificial satellites, believed that they were on the brink of being able to forecast the weather well into the future—and perhaps even to control it. Lorenz’s accidental discovery shattered those hopes, but his resulting contributions to both math and science have altered our understanding of the world.

There’s a “Doing the Math” section at the end of the book so that readers can try working out the math themselves!

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Listen to Robert Black talk about the Mathematical Lives series in the Breaking Math podcast.

Titles in Series:

Edward Lorenz and the Chaotic Butterflies
Benoit Mandelbrot: Reshaping the World
Ada Lovelace: Programming the Future
Florence Nightingale: The Lady with the Diagrams
Pascal and Fermat: The Probability Pen Pals
David Blackwell and the Deadliest Duel

Mathematical Lives Set