Jump to content

Talk:Butterfly effect

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Burt777 (talk | contribs) at 12:00, 23 February 2010 (→Explanation Incorrect). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Any support for making this a separate article?100TWdoug (talk) 05:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. There are enough movie or TV plotlines that center on the BFly Effect (or some version of it) that it might almost constitute a separate genre, similar to the "Zombie" movie category. Plenty of examples listed in the Wiki article now, but there are many others, including Twilight Zone episodes (e.g., "Back There") and Star Trek episodes like "City on the Edge of Forever." C d h (talk) 03:00, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. Separating (or even deleting) the popular media references would be a great improvement, because the text is completely unbalanced, with around a dozen paragraphs on popular media, mostly focusing on time travel, versus about three on the core content. This detracts from the article as a whole. This is a significant topic and deserves proper encyclopedic treatment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.228.200 (talk) 04:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, I'm gonna split these. Whole section needs nuked from orbit, but there's less drama involved in splitting it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Intro inconsistent

The introduction implies the butterfly is exclusive to nonlinear dynamics, then the example is given of a ball placed on top of a hill. I'm thinking of the "hill" z=C-x^2-y^2, which gives a linear dynamical system. 22:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Explanation Incorrect

This article doesn't seem to really explain the nature of the Butterfly effect as it is understood in nonlinear dynamics. It looks as if the colloquial misconception is just being reproduced. The Butterfly effect refers to how perturbations which are small relative to the attractor grow exponentially before being damped out by the overall behavior of the system. It's this kind of response which makes it impossible to make long-term predictions based upon the local behavior of a system.

Basically, it looks to me like the page is simply putting forth the Jurassic Park explanation which is incorrect; a butterfly can beat it's wings in Peking all it likes and the weather in New York won't be any different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gmcastil (talk • contribs) 22:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If a butterfly flapping it's wings could influence weather patterns then with all the planes flying (propellor and jet propulsion) we would constantly live in a hurricane unlike any before. Sounds like GLOBAL WARMING to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.199.250.34 (talk) 20:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, the actual bulk of this article needs citations if I am to be convinced that choas theory is really about small changes becoming uncontrollable. My understanding has been that it is small ERRORS that make things impossible to predict after an amount of time. 86.12.7.205 (talk) 16:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I may be wrong and don't really know where to find an answer to this question. The butterfly effect is listed in the dictionary as "a chaotic effect created by something seemingly insignificant, the phenomenon whereby a small change in one part of a complex system can have a large effect somewhere else". Is this like a one or two degree temperature drop causing fish population to decrease? I suppose temp. drop is a significant effect, so what would be considered insig.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.39.202.154 (talk) 16:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]


No no no! The butterfly effect is not that a clap of butterfly wings _will always cause_ a storm. It's just that the very small thing (movement of wing) will cause some other things (air will move), which will cause a bunch of other things (more air will move, a flower leaf might move a little, causing a drop to fall off that would otherwise stick to it), and all these effects cascading _MIGHT_ just be the difference in a storm emerging or no storm emerging. Even though the butterfly wing is small and it's effect seems ignorable, in our reality the effect is almost infinitely complex and therefore unpredictable. But I think it's also important to notice that the wing moving is just part of the same reality in which a storm or no storm will emerge. The connection (or lack thereof) is more a matter of human interpretation or synchronicity.--Burt777 (talk) 12:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Example in Intro

The example in the intro of a ball at the crest of a hill does not exhibit sensitive dependence on initial conditions in the sense that the term is usually used in the dynamical systems literature. The example should be removed and replaced by an example of a chaotic system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.188.91.58 (talk) 04:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree 100%. I was baffled when I saw that example. A much better example would be the Plinko game from The Price Is Right: if you drop the Plinko chip from a specific and exact spot 5 times, it could end up in a different compartment every time (because the starting location varied by about the width of a hair--or less--each time).--208.63.102.196 (talk) 18:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article should be simplified

As it is, this article is meaningless to non-experts in chaos theory. Example, "The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory."bob bobato (talk) 17:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why the edit war removing sourced material? (butterfly effect in quantum mechanics)

It is generally considered bad form to remove sourced material whose relevance is established through citations without justifying such removal on the talk page. "I don't like it" is not justification. "I don't think it is relevant" is not justification.140.32.16.101 (talk) 22:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong again. "I don't think it is relevant" is one of the best justifications for removal. In fact, in this case, it clearly isn't relevant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Further reasons.
  1. WP:LEDE specifies it shouldn't be in the lede unless it's also in the article.
  2. Our article "Quantum chaos" doesn't (and probably shouldn't) mention the butterfly effect. Unless I misread it, quantum chaos is a theory describing how quantum mechanics may produce macroscopic chaotic effects. That doesn't suggest relevance to the butterfly effect.
  3. Even if a number of authors use the butterfly effect in their titles for works related to quantum chaos, that doesn't mean that the author believes there is a connection. One would have to read the articles to determine whether the authors just put in popular buzz-words.
— Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Riddle me this: if Wikipedia articles cannot be used as sources to support content, how can the absence of support in a Wikipedia article be used to justify removal of content, especially when inclusion of that material is supported with citations of sources that meet Wikipedia standards for reliability?
I’ve addressed the issues raised above by adding a section on the butterfly effect in semiclassical and quantum physics, and by including quotes demonstrating that the citations are actually discussing the butterfly effect rather than merely including buzz words.140.32.16.101 (talk) 14:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. Regardless, it should NOT be in the lead, no matter how well-referenced it is (and I haven't checked yet). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
New section tagged as giving quantum physics an WP:UNDUE weight over classical physics, and the comment in the lead about quantum chaos still seems inappropriate, but now plausible. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each.(From WP:UNDUE)

The section on semiclassical and quantum physics is a small proportion of the overall article, and better supported with reliable sources than the article as a whole. It is also clear that there is very little debate about the validity of the sources being used to support the relationship between the butterfly effect and semiclassical/quantum physics.

Wikipedia is not bound by limits of space that limit published encyclopedia articles. Rather than waste time on edit wars over "proper weight", the Project is more rapidly advanced by collaborative editing with a spirit of generosity and openness to seeing as much material presented as possible. If you feel one POV is being represented by too many citations, the solution is to do your research to see if there are other peer reviewed sources representing your preferred POV that have not been included. Seek to bring balance to the article by adding material, not deleting it.(From WP:Scientific standards)

The new section does not disparage classical physics or indicate that the butterfly effect is not applicable or important in classical physics. If editors believe classical physics is deserving of more attention than it is currently receiving, they are welcome to improve the article by increasing its coverage, as long as they support the added coverage with reliable sources. Should there be more complete coverage of the butterfly effect in classical physics? Absolutely.140.32.16.101 (talk) 15:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Butterfly Effect in the Real World

The Butterfly Effect as described doesn't occur in the real world because air is a real gas possessing, among other things, viscosity. Viscosity causes disturbances to decay and disappear with time. The vorticity generated by the flapping of a butterfly's wings is damped out by viscosity and cannot affect the weather anywhere else on the planet. The disturbance caused by a jet plane's passage is damped out and the air mass through which it just flew returns to its original quiescent state. --Virgil H. Soule (talk) 16:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the Butterfly Imagery

The article states that using a butterfly as an example of the effect first appeared in Bradbury's short story. However, I've found an earlier use of it from 1903. The Universe a Vast Electric Organism by George Woodward Warder quotes Prof. Garrett P. Serviss in the New York American, May 16, 1903: "Lord Kelvin has been credited with the statement that the fluttering of a butterfly's wing sets up vibrations that shake the universe." Unfortunately I have not been able to find the source of Serviss' paraphrased quote. Lyle zapato (talk) 15:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Opening Paragraph at high reading level

The opening paragraph needs work. According to http://www.editcentral.com/gwt1/EditCentral.html, this paragraph has a flesh-kincaid grade level is 16.5. Shouldn't this be written at a more understandable level? I was trying to reference this article as a definition of the butterfly effect, but I think it's written at too high a grade level and should be simplified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.45.84.38 (talk) 15:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk:Butterfly_effect&oldid=345860357"