Edward Lorenz, father of Chaos Theory Dies [News]

Edward Lorenz, MIT meteorologist and father of Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect died on Wednesday in his home in Cambridge.  He was 90 years old.  And perhaps it’s fitting that on I Heart Chaos that this doesn’t get posted until several days later.  I heard about it on Wednesday and then Hillary Clinton flaps her jaw in Pennsylvania, which leads to something else, which leads to something else and before you know it, I’ve forgotten what I was going to do.

From the MIT press release:

A professor at MIT, Lorenz was the first to recognize what is now called chaotic behavior in the mathematical modeling of weather systems. In the early 1960s, Lorenz realized that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere–or a model of the atmosphere–could trigger vast and often unsuspected results.

These observations ultimately led him to formulate what became known as the butterfly effect–a term that grew out of an academic paper he presented in 1972 entitled: “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”

Lorenz’s early insights marked the beginning of a new field of study that impacted not just the field of mathematics but virtually every branch of science–biological, physical and social. In meteorology, it led to the conclusion that it may be fundamentally impossible to predict weather beyond two or three weeks with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Some scientists have since asserted that the 20th century will be remembered for three scientific revolutions–relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos.

“By showing that certain deterministic systems have formal predictability limits, Ed put the last nail in the coffin of the Cartesian universe and fomented what some have called the third scientific revolution of the 20th century, following on the heels of relativity and quantum physics,” said Kerry Emanuel professor of atmospheric science at MIT. “He was also a perfect gentleman, and through his intelligence, integrity and humility set a very high standard for his and succeeding generations.”

Born in 1917 in West Hartford, Conn., Lorenz received an AB in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1938, an AM in mathematics from Harvard University in 1940, an SM in meteorology from MIT in 1943 and an ScD in meteorology from MIT in 1948. It was while serving as a weather forecaster for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II that he decided to do graduate work in meteorology at MIT.

“As a boy I was always interested in doing things with numbers, and was also fascinated by changes in the weather,” Lorenz wrote in an autobiographical sketch.

Read the full press release here.

In his work, Lorenz showed that the world is not the wholly orderly and predictable place science wanted it to be.  But with this notion came the revelation that while there may be things that will always be out of our control, the world is a little more exciting and mysterious for it.  We heart Edward Lorenz.  RIP.