Melissa LyonsApril 24, 2011

Period #1

Chaos Theory &

The Butterfly Effect

To start off, the Chaos Theory is study of the behavior of

dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to original conditions.

The Butterfly Effect is from this theory the effect of sensitive

dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one

place in a nonlinear system can result in large changes later. The

example most commonly used is: the presence or absence of a

butterfly flapping its wings could lead to creation or absence of a

hurricane. But these two are different in a sense that: the Butterfly

Effect is the chaos theory, but the Chaos Theory is not the

Butterfly Effect. The Chaos Theory is also when something has so

many factors that it can’t be predicted accurately, and when tried it

shows a chaotic pattern.

Examples of the Chaos Theory in a Sound of Thunder

include there whole theory about changing time. They first assume

that changing time is proportional to the Butterfly Effect, where

every little change causes a catastrophic change in the future. But

they also state that maybe they’d make a small, subtle change that

no one will notice or only cause small repercussions, even stating

that it might not change anything at all. The is a example of Chaos

Theory in a sense that they could not accurately predict what

would happen if they changed something due to too many factors

and possible outcomes. If graphed it would show a chaotic pattern.

The Butterfly Effect shows up numerous times in this story.

Obviously the main one being that Eckels stepped on a butterfly,

killing it and altering history, but there are a couple more examples

of how they tried preventing it. These include: the Path; which was

built to prevented people from touching the ground, the oxygen

masks; which stopped them from breathing chemicals into the air,

and removing the bullets from the dinosaur’s body. All measured

done to prevent what inevitably happed, the Butterfly Effect.

Uittenbogaard, Arie. "Chaos Theory ." abarim-publications.com. 24 Apr. 2011. <http://http://www.abarim-publications.com/ChaosTheoryIntroduction.html>.

“Butterfly Effect” Wikipedia.com 24 Apr. 2011<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect>