WHAT IS THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT?

How even the smallest action can cause significant and unpredictable events in the future

- WORDS AILSA HARVEY

If you ever get the feeling that you're insignificant as one of 8 billion humans on Earth, or when you think about the scale of the universe, consider the power of the unassuming butterfly.

The idea behind the 'butterfly effect' theory is that the tiny currents of air changed by the flutter of a butterfly's wing can lead to a powerful storm. This is because weather patterns are highly sensitive to their initial conditions. If a butterfly alters the air pressure or temperature slightly with this subtle movement, these tiny changes in atmospheric conditions can snowball into huge meteorological events that cause a hurricane. The butterfly effect is caused by unpredictable events between these actions, meaning that if we were able to plot each successive change, it would no longer be unpredictable. For this reason, though it's known that small actions can cause a chain reaction, each specific example is highly hypothetical.