Okay, what is this?

Here's a movie that's coming out next year, end of January 2004, and it's called "The Butterfly Effect". And guess what it's about?

Yep! Time Travel....

Different scenario, you betcha, but something downright familiar in some errie way of Bradbury's 'The Sound of Thunder.' Even the advertisement dares to read, 'Change One Thing, Change Everything!'

But, then, you decide:

(If you got the downloaded software, click on, or type into finder): http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/the_butterfly_effect/


[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 11-07-2003).]

The butterfly effect is a major part of Chaos Theory discussions. As in A Sound of Thunder, it just means that a very small event, over a prolonged period of time, can create significant change.

It would be interesing to know whether A Sound of Thunder preceded the Butterfly effect in Chaos Theory or vice versa.

EDITED ADDITION:

According to this section from Dandelion's link (post below), Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" appears to have preceded the term's use in Chaos Theory.

"short story _A Sound Of Thunder_ by Ray Bradbury written in 1952 foreshadowing the butterfly effect of chaos theory"



[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 11-07-2003).]

Here's a page with a timeline including Ray:
http://fusionanomaly.net/chaos.html

The phrase seems to have been used by a man named Lorenz several years after Ray's story referring to non-linear weather patterns, suggesting that the effect of a butterfly flapping its wings in one place could lead to a hurricane in a far distant place, but it's difficult to determine whether Lorenz is supposed to have coined the phrase or popularized it.

Dandelion:

Good Grief! After viewing your link reference, all I can say is....

How complicated can it get...?

[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 11-07-2003).]

Very interesting there's a movie coming out called "The Butterfly Effect," the same year that "A Sound of Thunder" is coming out...

Very common, actually, for two different production companies to come out with movies of similar premise in the same year:

Armageddon/Deep Impact
Volcano/Dante's Peak
Spiderman/Daredevil
Twister/Tornado!
etc.

In my opinion, whenever this happens, one of them usually sucks pretty bad.

And then there's just the ripoffs:
Agent Cody Banks/Clockstoppers...two movies (about kids with cool gadgets) wishing they could be Spy Kids.

Often too, they cycle particular themes from year to year:
2001, despite the number, turned out to be a fantasy year, featuring Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
This was probably done to contrast 1999's Sci-fi overload from Star Wars I and the Matrix.
2002 featured a bunch of movies about "unlikely people" being recruited into the FBI/CIA. The premise was: One once-respectable actor puts my opinion of him in jeopardy when he recruits a stupid younger actor into a bigwig govt. agency such as the FBI or CIA:
1.Bad Company starring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock
2.Sum of All Fears starring Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck
3.Triple X starring Samuel L. Jackson and Vin Diesel
(notice that in all 3 one actor is black and the other is white? Not important, but it's just that the formula is SO OBVIOUS! And in the theater I saw all three previews played back to back! I knew then it would be a slow year for movies!)
This next year seems to be set aside for time travel, beginning with this month's Timeline.

Let's just hope that A Sound OF Thunder is "the good one" out of this bunch.

[This message has been edited by groon (edited 12-03-2003).]

We saw the preview when we went to see the "Lord of the Rings" movie. The basic premise is the main character's concept of happiness is all tied up with this girl he's loved since childhood. She dies, then he finds a way to change the past through a scrap of paper with special powers. He brings her back, happy, but she dies again. He doesn't learn his lesson, and brings her back again. This time she is messed up and something he does lands him in prison. The premise is change one thing, change everything. People were sort of saying it looked weird and they weren't sure they'd want to see it. From the preview it was pretty hard to tell how much it may have sucked or not.

One of my favorite books on this (chaos theory and the butterfly effect) is:

SEVEN LIFE LESSONS OF CHAOS: TIMELESS WISDOM FROM THE SCIENCE OF CHANGE. by John Briggs and F. David Peat. HarperCollins Publishers, NY. 1999.

The two authors are Phd's in Physics and English, and look at some of the scientific principles of the theory (though it is directed at non-scientific readers), and it also looks at the metophors involved in creating a personal philosophy of life that incorporates elements of chaos theory. One chapter is called, "Using Butterfly Power" and deals with the idea that small changes can have a large impact.

Well written and interesting.

Oh, I saw the preview also; and it looked to me like it might be pretty interesting. The Back to the Future movies (obviously) also deal with the idea that small changes will alter future events. The movie (and book) Jurrasic Park also touch on chaos theory and the impact of random change.



[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 12-27-2003).]

It appears the new movie, The Butterfly Effect, is based on Sound of Thunder. If not directly, then indirectly. I read Sound of Thunder when I was maybe 15 (45 years ago) and it changed my life. I was hooked on Ray and writing became a passion. I also was fond of Welles and Poe.

An article I read credits a mathematician by the name of Ed Lorenz with the line "Can the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Texas?" some 45 years ago. Lorenz was into weather forecasting.. when was Sound of Thunder written?

First publication 1952.

It occurred to me that the idea in the book and movie "Pay It Forward" http://www.payitforwardfoundation.org/home.html is also very Bradburyesque--a combination of the idea of Douglas Spaulding, in "Dandelion Wine," of paying back Junkman Jonas by passing it along, and his brother Tom's special interest involving numbers and counting things.

The Butterfly Effect is mentioned in Jurassic Park, in the scene in the Jeep when Jeff Goldblum's character is telling Laura Dern's character about chaos.

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
The Butterfly Effect is mentioned in Jurassic Park, in the scene in the Jeep when Jeff Goldblum's character is telling Laura Dern's character about chaos.

Mog the Dog here.

Speaking of the butterfly effect, I was just reminded of it the other day when the most recent wave of "Ray Bradbury synchronicity" unfolded in our backyard.

A few years ago, a nice man sold a set of Ray Bradbury books to my favorite human companion at his yard sale. The first story she read from the set was "A Sound of Thunder". Coincidentally, a few days later he showed up at her place of employment to begin working on a huge butterfly sanctuary landscaping project. Long story short, a distorted synchronistic version of Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" played out in the next few weeks between the nasty property owner (whose name is Deutcher), the landscaper, and a dufus landscape maintenance worker who crushed underfoot a tiny model of Stonehenge that my favorite human companion had erected in the butterfly garden.

Things did not go so well after that. Deutscher fired the dufus for some unrelated misdeed. The nice landscaper had quit a few weeks before out of utter disgust with the whole project.

There are now more butterflies in my favorite human companion's backyard (which is just across the street) than in the butterfly sanctuary!

Fast forward to last week when the nice landscaper/garage sale guy came to do some landscaping in my favorite human companion's backyard. As they were discussing the work to be done, the man spotted an old and tired butterfly in the chicken yard and rescued it before it became a tasty treat for one of the hens.

I must confess that I went out and played with the little beauty for quite some time after everyone else had turned in:







Surely such an innocuous bit-o-fun on my part could not have any negative consequences for our future, could it?

Heh...heh...heh...

MTD

Mog, it was great meeting you and your humans at Ray's birthday party last year and seeing this evidence of your latest frolics. You behaved admirably at the party and I know you were kind and careful with the butterfly.