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In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a hurricane (exact time of formation, exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier. Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed that runs of his weather model with initial condition data that was rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome. The butterfly effect is exhibited by very simple systems. For example, the randomness of the outcomes of throwing dice depends on this characteristic to amplify small differences in initial conditions—the precise direction, thrust, and orientation of the throw—into significantly different dice paths and outcomes, which makes it virtually impossible to throw dice exactly the same way twice. ==History== Chaos theory and the sensitive dependence on initial conditions were described in the literature in a particular case of the three-body problem by Henri Poincaré in 1890.〔(Some Historical Notes: History of Chaos Theory )〕 He later proposed that such phenomena could be common, for example, in meteorology. In 1898,〔 Jacques Hadamard noted general divergence of trajectories in spaces of negative curvature. Pierre Duhem discussed the possible general significance of this in 1908.〔 The idea that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent historic events made its earliest known appearance in "A Sound of Thunder", a 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury about time travel (see Literature and print here). In 1961, Lorenz was running a numerical computer model to redo a weather prediction from the middle of the previous run as a shortcut. He entered the initial condition 0.506 from the printout instead of entering the full precision 0.506127 value. The result was a completely different weather scenario. In 1963 Lorenz published a theoretical study of this effect in a highly cited, seminal paper called ''Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow''〔(Google Scholar citation record )〕 (the calculations were performed on a Royal McBee LGP-30 computer).〔 Elsewhere he stated Following suggestions from colleagues, in later speeches and papers Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly. According to Lorenz, when he failed to provide a title for a talk he was to present at the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1972, Philip Merilees concocted ''Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?'' as a title.〔(Lorenz: "Predictability", AAAS 139th meeting, 1972 ) Retrieved May 22, 2015〕 Although a butterfly flapping its wings has remained constant in the expression of this concept, the location of the butterfly, the consequences, and the location of the consequences have varied widely.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Butterfly Effects: Variations on a Meme )〕 The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in another location. The butterfly does not power or directly create the tornado. The term is not intended to imply—as is often misconstrued—that the flap of the butterfly's wings ''causes'' the tornado. The flap of the wings is a part of the initial conditions; one set of conditions leads to a tornado while the other set of conditions doesn't. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which cascades to large-scale alterations of events (compare: domino effect). Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different—it's possible that the set of conditions without the butterfly flapping its wings is the set that leads to a tornado. The butterfly effect presents an obvious challenge to prediction, since initial conditions for a system such as the weather can never be known to complete accuracy. This problem motivated the development of ensemble forecasting, in which a number of forecasts are made from perturbed initial conditions. Some scientists have since argued that the weather system is not as sensitive to initial condition as previously believed. David Orrell argues that the major contributor to weather forecast error is model error, with sensitivity to initial conditions playing a relatively small role. Stephen Wolfram also notes that the Lorenz equations are highly simplified and do not contain terms that represent viscous effects; he believes that these terms would tend to damp out small perturbations. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「butterfly effect」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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