Stone to Silicon

Math & science · 1963

Chaos theory

Lorenz finds that tiny rounding errors blow up in a simple weather model.

His paper Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow showed deterministic systems can be unpredictable, the butterfly effect. It set the practical limit of weather forecasting and reshaped physics and biology.

See it in the living treeWikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2