The “butterfly effect” is a term in popular culture that refers to the idea that in some complex systems, small changes at one point in time might lead to very different outcomes in the more distant future. It derives from a talk given by the mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz back in 1972. Lorenz was interested in something slightly different - how well weather could be forecast the farther into the future you go and how very small errors in what we know about the weather now translate into very different forecasts in the long term. But the popular usage of the term to mean that small seemingly unimportant things that happen now can create a very different future is more fun, so let’s ride with it.
The butterfly effect, New York Giants edition
