Page 3 - Al-Rashed Newsletter February 2022

POTPOURRI

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT (CHAOS THEORY)

‘EACH PATH PRODUCES A DIFFERENT OUTCOME’

Edward Norton Lorenz, an American meteorologist and mathematician, conducted a theory in the 1960’s,
known as the Butterfly Effect. It shows how one tiny change in the starting condition of an event, can have a
significant impact on the outcome, causing a massive change, altering the course of all our lives. Quoting
the words of Edward Lorenz at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in
1972 “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”.

The death of the 1500 passengers could’ve been avoided if David Blair, a British merchant seaman, did not
forget to place the binoculars in the crow’s nest locker as it was the only set available on the ship. Later it
was found that he had left the binoculars back at his cabin. The missing binoculars became one of the
factors and main point of investigation at that time which caused the sinking of the Titanic Ship, since the
lookouts at the time of the collision did not see the iceberg from a distance, causing it to crash and sink.

Another example of the Lorenz effect was the fatal explosion of the Nuclear Power Plant at Chernobyl in
April 1986, near the town of Pripyat, Ukraine, causing 49,000 people to flee to its neighboring countries,
which is now known as the ‘Ghost Town’. If the reactor design wasn’t flawed, or if the engineers were more
careful while performing test runs, the world’s worst nuclear disaster could’ve been avoided in terms of cost
(economically) and casualties.

Every action we take, leads back to the butterfly effect. These 2 minutes you spent reading my write-up,
could have prevented you from going out and getting into trouble. We are all here to serve a purpose one
way or another, and we tend to shape each other’s lives in ways that we can’t think of. Whatever decisions
you make today matters. Every decision you take points your life in a different direction. No decision is an
isolated choice. It is just a chain of events.

TAMARA ESSAM
COORDINATOR- VESSEL