What is the Butterfly Effect? How it could be true

What is the butterfly effect? The Real Butterfly Effect -- Imagine this scenario, a butterfly flutters its wings in Brazil, and it sets off a cascade of events over the course of time, which results in the touchdown of a tornado in Texas.

This is the idea that lots of seemingly small chaotic differences in initial conditions can make a big difference over time and distance. Is this effect real? And if so, how does it work? Let’s look at this more closely.

In 1972, meteorology professorEdward Lorenz asked the question at a conference: “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” This was really just a rhetorical question.

Lorenz was trying to point out that large meteorological phenomenon, like tornadoes or hurricanes cannot be predicted far in advance, because there are too many small variables which are beyond our capability to measure. This is why tomorrow’s weather forecasts is much more accurate than a 10 day forecast. There are too many variables that can change over 10 days, whereas there are fewer variables that change in 1 day. In other words, Lorenz was trying to say that weather is unpredictable.

He said this to illustrate the idea that some complex and dynamic systems have behaviors such that a small variance in the initial conditions could have a huge effect on the results. This idea in mathematics is part of the so called chaos theory - Meaning we don’t have a way to predict things even if we know all the variables. At least not yet.

The butterfly in Brazil making a tornado in Texas is a dramatic way to illustrate this. Or is it?

-- just for fun, let’s just see how that might work, if it was really possible. Let’s make it as realistic as possible.

Instead of Brazil, picture a swarm of monarch butterflies that are migrating from Eastern Canada to Mexico for the winter. This by the way actually happens every year before the onset of winter. Tens of thousands of monarch butterflies do this as a group every year. During one of these migrations, thousands of monarchs stop in Nebraska. They might sit on a single tree at night to rest before the next day’s journey.

Again, this actually happens.

They only travel in the morning. And they sometimes wait for a large wind to help them fly. One morning, a flock of Robbins, arch enemies of butterflies happens to be flying overhead. They are also migrating south for the winter, flying from Vancouver, Canada to Guatemala.

They normally don’t cross paths, but because of climate change, the timing of their migrations happen to coincide this year. And a smaller group of Robbins gets separated from the main group flying further east than normal – right in the way of the butterfly swarm’s path. A smack of a Robin’s bird poop hits on a branch and startles one butterfly. This butterfly suddenly flaps its wings and abandons the tree in panic.

The massive fluttering of wings from multiple swarms causes a local wind perturbance. The simultaneous flutter of these swarms of butterflies adds local kinetic energy into the flow of wind in the area. This lowers the local atmospheric pressure slightly.

The slight change in pressure at the ground level causes fast moving colder upper atmospheric winds to be “sucked” into the lower atmosphere, which lowers the temperature locally by 2 degrees Celsius.

A similar effect due to wind turbines has been scientifically shown to have such an effect. So there you have how the flutter of one butterfly could, with only a slight stretch of the imagination,cause a tornado in Texas.

Now, what if by watching this video, you were late going grocery shopping by 30 seconds, thereby avoiding a guy who ran a red light that would have otherwise t-boned your car.

I just saved your life – I think you should thank me.

Citations:

[dennistucker]

In the linear model of time, I believe the "Butterfly Effect" is real. I also believe that the consequences can be much more dramatic depending on time scales.

[RedexsAmcc]

The butterfly effect is just another description of the complete interconnectedness of everything at the sub quantum level so that butterfly flap of a wing is part of the tornado as is every other action happening simultaneously on earth.

[bradleyfitzik]

Thank you @ArvinAsh for saving my life today!! It snowed over 15 inches of snow in 15 hours, which ended yesterday, in Colorado where I live and I just watched this video before going to run errands and there was a car crash on my route to my first errand that had just happened a couple minutes earlier. No joke man, thank you for saving me from a possible terrible accident! And the craziest thing is this video is months old and it just came up on my recommendation list before I was going to leave for the errands!! You predicted my future actions months ago!!!

[valterzc]

Every action generates a domino effect around it, that spreads through the whole world. So taking it in consideration, we can say that if an anonymous person in middle age had just decided to walk through a different street, it would be enough to change completely the world we know and none of us would be born, but some other people instead.

[FobbitMike]

OMG, where did you get that photo of Edward Lorenz? He looks like he was in the tornado caused by the butterfly. lol

[raghavtejasvi]

We are either just lucky that no disastrous events by virtue of butterfly effect has wiped out mankind or that Mother Nature is mysteriously balancing out all the extremes to allow life to continue on this planet.

[IkanGelamaKuning]

One evening I just went out for a drink, then met my friend who told me there will be an interview next day. So I went to that interview. Succeeded that interview. That simple evening drink, led me to this future now Im living.

[atomicsamurai]

Completely randomness man i think if i subscribe you will be the next PewDiePie 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣

[marbachmeier]

Ok I to am a believer in the butterfly​ effect​ but tornado from butterfly is a stretch

[tectardedprepper]

Thank you, he missed me by
THAT much !
Lol great video

[himanshusingh-qgsu]

Thanks to my man Arvin Ash.
Great vid btw. 😄

[GP-qbhi]

The butterfly analogy is probably the worst example as it never happens this way but seemingly unimportant life decisions can lead to a completely different life path.

[kumaraakarsh]

...but was it the butterfly, or the bird poop??

[sharannagarajan]

This is a misunderstanding of butterfly effect. This kind of cascading effect will take years before it can show something as drastic as a tornado. There is a link between time taken for cascading and the disturbance in initial condition based on the equations that govern the determining system. Checkout veritasium’s video on chaos theory for a better understanding.

[HaloHeathen]

Thank you! I'm already subscribed, should I unsubscribe and re-subscribe? LoL!

[vedantsridhar]

Now I definitely wouldn't ever time travel like in Back to the Future

[TaSwavo]

The idea of the Butterfly Effect is that YOU recording this video - even the first second of it - could cause the end of humanity. If you knew about the concept in reality you would realise that all causal effects work together to form what we end up with - and all causal effects is what we call EVERYTHING. So everything causes everything.
More importantly... the thing you missed is EVERYTHING except what you think you saw. THAT is the Butterfly Effect. Please don't assume you know. Many mathematicians realise the study of what we can't know more important - so Butterfly Effect in negative is useful.

[siddeshbandekar]

Oh hi butterfly how was your day!
Pretty effective I caused a tornado today

[ZanyGod]

That was fun but I don't believe a word of it. :-)