The butterfly effect, shown comically in figure 1, is the idea that a very small change in one place on Earth can cause a very big change somewhere else. In this case, a butterfly flaps its wings and causes a tornado. This metaphor illustrates the mathematical concept of chaos, in which the Earth’s atmosphere is a chaotic system. While a single butterfly probably isn’t literally responsible for a tornado, mathematical chaos is very real and important. So this week, I’m going to try giving you some intuition for the butterfly effect using one extreme example from physics. Heat Suppose