The Butterfly Effect

Small causes, big effects

An interactive lesson with 6 steps, about 5 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• In chaotic systems, tiny initial differences grow exponentially (the butterfly effect).
• More precise measurements only add time logarithmically.
• Weather is chaotic, which limits detailed forecasts to about one to two weeks.

Steps

1. Two almost identical starts
2. Lorenz’s discovery
3. The Lorenz attractor
4. Weather versus climate
5. From a whisper to a storm
6. Buying time