Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory dies at the age of 90

“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” - Edward Lorenz

Many of us have heros in this day and age, and mine was Edward Lorenz.

Edward Lorenz was mathematician and meteorologist. But more importantly, he was one of the most influential pioneers of Chaos Theory.

Many years ago, after moving around quite a bit, I got bored, hopped on the internet, and did some random searches. What I found was Chaos Theory.

Chaos Theory intrigued me from the very begining, and it all started with that butterfly in brazil pissing off those little fuckers in Texas (Sounds like we need some brazilian butterfly’s to exterminate the “Bush” virus out there).

After reading about the butterfly in brazil, I started reading more and more. My science projects were all based off of Chaos Theory (resulting in quite a few failing grades I might add), and I remember getting into many arguments about the theory, not only with my science teachers (Kachi, you were the bomb), but my school principle when I was called down asking why I kept failing my assignments.

Vectors, Vortex’s and everything else related to Chaos Theory intrigued me to the point where I would spend days on end reading books I got from the library, reading webpages devoted to Chaos Theory, and even watching the “Butterfly Effect” (Ashton Kutcher… Stop acting… Seriously).

Then I stopped. I started moving around again, and I moved back to a place where I knew people. I stopped researching, as with friends, school, and a job, I no longer had time for my own research into what makes the foundations of this theory.

Coincidently, it was merely a week before his death that I used Chaos Theory in an argument again. It was used against a psychoanalyst-in-training in an argument about whether or not a kid had been responsible for a childhood trauma. I argued the “he was at fault” side, and she took the other route. While not the greatest implementation of Chaos Theory, it was the first time in years I had remembered about it.

Some interesting reads that I enjoyed as a kid:

Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow

Lorenz Attractor

Awards won by Lorenz include

• 1969 Carl Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, American Meteorological Society.
• 1973 Symons Memorial Gold Medal, Royal Meteorological Society.
• 1975 Fellow, National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.).
• 1981 Member, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
• 1983 Crafoord Prize, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• 1984 Honorary Member, Royal Meteorological Society.
• 1991 Kyoto Prize for ‘… his boldest scientific achievement in discovering “deterministic chaos” .’.
• 2004 Buys Ballot medal.

Selected Publications (from wikipedia)

1955 Available potential energy and the maintenance of the general circulation. Tellus. Vol.7

1963 Deterministic nonperiodic flow. Journal of Atmospheric Sciences. Vol.20 : 130—141 link ^[8].

1967 The nature and theory of the general circulation of atmosphere. World Meteorological Organization. No.218

1969 Three approaches to atmospheric predictability. American Meteorological Society. Vol.50

1976 Nondeterministic theories of climate change. Quaternary Research. Vol.6

1990 Can chaos and intransitivity lead to interannual variability? Tellus. Vol.42A

2005 Designing Chaotic Models. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences: Vol. 62, No. 5, pp. 1574–1587.

Link to AP obituary, here is the New York Times piece, and here is more about Lorenz at the MIT website

BoingBoing Article

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