by I remember vividly about the first time I came to know about the existence of a butterfly effect.
The rule states that a minor change in one state of an object or system can lead to a large difference at a later time. To equate the same in a more simplistic manner, the fluttering of the wings of a butterfly can cause a major tornado in the other part of the world. It may sound kinda crazy and unbelievable at first , but when you trace out the navigation and path of the system ,you’ll realize the effects unraveling piece by piece.
Imagine standing at the top of a mountain with two stones in hand. You roll down the stones from the top to the bottom placing it just a few cms apart. But when it starts to roll down the end point for the two stones are several metres apart and end up in completely different places. The small deviations during the navigation while rolling down results in forming a completely new path not related to each other . When you observe the same visually in a map like format, you’ll find the resulting paths each stone took despite starting almost next to each other
What’s surprising is that this butterfly effect affects each and everyone of us all the time. A small change in your plan, schedule or career option can lead to drastic results that actually affects you 50 years later.
The Hollywood movie Sliding Doors has depicted this butterfly effect in the most perfect manner. When the actress choses to return home from work , she gets delayed by a few minutes and ends up missing a train. She then waits for the next train and goes home 30 minutes later, where she’s met with a loving husband . On a parallel note, if the actress had caught the train indeed, she would have ended up seeing her husband cheating on her, which further results in a divorce and her life takes a whole different turn. A small change in her navigation had resulted in a major upturn of events in her life which can affect it 20-30 years later as well
From a statistical standpoint, this is depicted in a manner called Decision tree . The tree branches out based on each factor and their corresponding result and in the end the final node reflects only a small % of the original root note. A special algorithm called Random Forest algorithm also illustrates a predicted resulting tree branch for a given set of information
I have personally felt this all the time wondering that all my friends who studied with me in my school in the same class studying the same subjects, scoring similar marks have now branched out to so many different industries in several countries in various positions.
The same thing happens when we are navigating in a car and want to head out to a destination. A small change in the route can actually lead us to several minutes of delay or even end up missing an appointment.
The butterfly effect is indeed a reality and hope one is careful while deciding on each and every move he takes
This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
