The Butterfly Effect

[hillsbororiver]

Job 38:4  Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Job 38:5  Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Job 38:6  Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;

The complexity of God's creation gets deeper the more one looks into the minute details, one example is what is called "The Butterfly Effect" this deals with the theory that a butterfly in Brazil (choose a location) can by the flapping of his wings bring about a series of consequences that end up as a tornado in Texas (choose a location).

How applicable is this idea within our own personal lives? That one seemingly insignificant thought, action, circumstance, etc. happens in our life that has a profound even life changing effect, it could be something very minor and barely perceptable at the time but in fact it stirred a series of events that became earth shattering to us.

   
                                                THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
                                                  (by John H. Lienhard)

Today, our notion of cause and effect changes forever. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

Author James Gleick tells about MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz. In 1960 Lorenz tried to model the weather. He wrote simplified equations and solved them on a primitive computer. Sure enough, his output did behave a lot like real weather. His colleagues watched over his shoulder. They were fascinated.

One day, Lorenz tried to continue a run he'd done the day before. He restarted it halfway through. He put in a number from the first run. The output started out just the way it had the day before. Then it began to diverge, crazily.

The equations were the same. The starting point was the same. But the results diverged. Lorenz checked his computer. He checked his arithmetic. Nothing had changed. Same equations, but on subsequent days the results diverged.

There was one difference, but how could it matter? Lorenz rounded off the fourth decimal place of the starting number on the second day. So he stopped to consider. All weather predictions do what his program just did. You can predict the weather for the day after tomorrow. Stretch that to a week, and your prediction always departs from reality.

The implication was staggering. We've always presumed that if you barely change a cause, you'll barely change the effect. Suddenly, Lorenz saw that the weather would change utterly if you started things out just a little differently.

No wonder real weather is so unpredictable! Weather obeys physical laws. But if you change one breath of air, those laws will spin out in a wholly different story.

Meteorologists began talking about something they called the Butterfly Effect. The idea was that if a butterfly chances to flap his wings in Beijing in March, then, by August, hurricane patterns in the Atlantic will be completely different.

Not long after that day in 1960, the scientific world began changing. Perhaps all kinds of nasty problems we can't solve are nasty just because we can never state them accurately enough.

Lorenz had taken the first step on the road to showing that our world is far more *chaotic than we dreamed. For generations engineers and scientists have been predicting things. But we've only predicted those things that are predictable -- the breaking load on beams -- the thrust of a rocket.

And weather, of course, is just one face of the larger thing we all want to know, but which we never shall predict. Somewhere in the world, a butterfly will always flap its wings and thwart our age-old craving to predict -- our own future.

*Chaos theory

Chaos theory: In a scientific context, the word chaos has a slightly different meaning than it does in its general usage as a state of confusion, lacking any order. Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules; this understanding of chaos is synonymous with dynamical instability, a condition discovered by the physicist Henri Poincare in the early 20th century that refers to an inherent lack of predictability in some physical systems. The two main components of chaos theory are the ideas that systems - no matter how complex they may be - rely upon an underlying order, and that very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events. (God is in control) 

His Peace and Wisdom to you,

Joe

[Kat]

Hi Joe,

All the complexities of this world is truly a marvel, and God controls it all 

Isa 55:8  "For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
       Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD.
Isa 55:9  "For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
       So are My ways higher than your ways,
       And My thoughts than your thoughts.


mercy, peace, and love
Kat

[ciy]

Joe
I love seeing God in all of the sciences.  All the new findings on quantum physics and such are just proof of God to me.

It is all of God.  The butterfly theory is a witness to "a little leaven leavens the whole lump." We are to be very careful what we allow into our spiritual house. And also to realize that it is not the big storms or the earthquakes, etc it is that "still small voice" within that changes the world.

God's plan is awesome and what we see is made from things that we cannot see.

CIY

[Harryfeat]

Hey Joe,

Oh my such randomness

What do scientists say about the underlying order of things operating among the chaos?  The popular big bang theory was so missing the real cause for the original big bang. 

Thanks for the additional perspective that comes from scientists results from looking at how God's creation is functioning.

The more I look at these things the closer I feel we are to God.

feat

[iris]

Hi Joe,

That was interesting!

Thanks for sharing.


Iris

[John9362]

Great post Joe...

Meteorologists began talking about something they called the Butterfly Effect. The idea was that if a butterfly chances to flap his wings in Beijing in March, then, by August, hurricane patterns in the Atlantic will be completely different.

WOW !! Since a butterfly's flap of a wing can do that.....I've decided to cut back on my baked bean consumption....I DO NOT WANT TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR A TSUNAMI 

Love you guys !!
John9362

[hebrewroots98]

Joe, you are brilliant; you should get the award for bringing us the most brilliant analogies .  Thanks for the great info.

[hillsbororiver]

Hi ciy, feat, Iris, John & Susan (you are wayyyyyyyy too kind Susan!)

Thank you all for your comments, I love how the things that science once thought were simple turn out to be real complex the closer you observe, research and study them.

Here is an example posed by the Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot in regard to something we would think to have a relatively easy and very definitive answer;


HOW LONG IS THE COAST?

A long, long time ago, fractal god Benoit Mandelbrot posed a simple question: How long is the coastline of Britain? His mathematical colleagues were miffed, to say the least, at such an annoying waste of their time on such insignifigant problems. They told him to look it up.

Of course, Madelbrot had a reason for his peculiar question. Quite an interesting reason. Look up the coastline of Britain yourself, in some encyclopedia. Whatever figure you get, it is wrong. Quite simply, the coastline of Britain is infinite.

You protest that this is impossible. Well, consider this. Consider looking at Britain on a very large-scale map. Draw the simplest two-dimensional shape possible, a triangle, which circumscribes Britain as closely as possible. The perimeter of this shape approximates the perimeter of Britain.

However, this area is of course highly inaccurate. Increasing the amount of vertices of the shape going around the coastline, and the area will become closer. The more vertices there are, the closer the circumscribing line will be able to conform to the dips and the protrusions of Britain's rugged coast.

There is one problem, however. Each time the number of vertices increases, the perimeter increases. It must increase, because of the triangle inequality. Moreover, the number of vertices never reaches a maximum. There is no point at which one can say that a shape defines the coastline of Britain. After all, exactly circumscribing the coast of Britain would entail encircling every rock, every tide pool, every pebble which happens to lie on the edge of Britain.

Thus, the coastline of Britian is infinite.

His Peace to you,

Joe

[hebrewroots98]

JOE, I WILL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR THAT ABOUT BRITTIAN'S COASTLINE, JOE

JOHN....NOW THAT WAS HILLARIOIUS; I ALMOST CHOKED FROM LAUGHING SO HARD...(STOP, MY SIDE HURTS FROM LAUGHING SO HARD

[cjwood]

Great post Joe...

Meteorologists began talking about something they called the Butterfly Effect. The idea was that if a butterfly chances to flap his wings in Beijing in March, then, by August, hurricane patterns in the Atlantic will be completely different.

WOW !! Since a butterfly's flap of a wing can do that.....I've decided to cut back on my baked bean consumption....I DO NOT WANT TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR A TSUNAMI 

Love you guys !!
John9362

now that is too funny.  i loved your reply.
claudia

[hillsbororiver]

JOE, I WILL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR THAT ABOUT BRITTIAN'S COASTLINE, JOE

Hi Susan,

This just underlines the fact that we know so very little about even the things we are surrounded by, we could not even count the number of hairs on our head and be totally 100% sure we were correct (well our bald brothers excepted), most likely we would get a slightly different number each time we counted, yet He knows;

Mat 10:30  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Luk 12:7  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

In the previous verse Christ speaks of not even one sparrow is forgotten of God, how awesome is that? Doesn't that show us He loves all His creation and knows exactly what is going on with all of them (us) at every moment and it is all under His control?

His Peace and Wisdom to you,

Joe   

[ciy]

Joe,

You have probably seen this, but if not check it out.  The Elegant Universe which was on PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/ 

Like your example of the coastline of Britain being infinite, so is the depth of God's creation in just about every area.  We think we have known some truth or fact for years and then you realize that it is deeper and wider than you thought.  It is amazing.
CIY

[hillsbororiver]

Hi CIY,

Beautiful, beautiful stuff there!

I have read The Theory of Everything and have looked into such things as Quantum Physics and the questions surrounding gravity (the speed of gravity and it's energy source) all these things show our God to be of infinite glory, that He sets these things into motion and is aware of it all and in control of everything is totally awe inspiring.

We see this in the same light Brother,

Joe

[hebrewroots98]

INDEED...OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  HE IS TOO MUCH FOR ME TO TAKE IN; AND YET HE CONSUMES MY UTMOST BEING AND EVERY THOUGHT AND EVERY CELL.


My little guy asked me last night who made God?  Of course I told him that God made himself; that HE IS THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE BEGINNING AND THE END; AND THAT HE IS LOVE...if anyone has anything more to add to this question...I would be greatly obliged!!!