Edward Lorenz

Dr. Edward Lorenz was born in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1917. He studied mathematics at Dartmouth College and then received his master's degree from Harvard in 1940. During World War Two, he worked as a weather forecaster. His interest in the field led him to pursue graduate work at MIT where he earned masters and doctoral degrees in Meteorology.

Known as the father of the Chaos Theory, he discovered "deterministic chaos" in 1961 while running weather simulations using a simple computer model. Like many other important discoveries, this was purely accidental. His intention was to repeat a simulation he had already run, but start in the middle and run it longer. The printer, unbeknownst to Dr Lorenz, had rounded off some numbers that were required to set up and begin the simulation. After entering the data, he witnessed a completely different outcome. Dr. Lorenz soon realized that the seemingly insignificant discrepancies in the initial set up had dramatically affected the course of events in his simulation. Papers were published, and the theory that small disturbances can have enormous consequences was born as "The Chaos Theory".

The science of chaos "brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind's view of natural science since Sir Isaac Newton," said the committee that awarded Dr. Lorenz the 1991 Kyoto Prize for basic sciences. In 1972, he gave a talk at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science entitled "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" From then on, Dr. Edward Lorenz would be forever famous for his "Butterfly Effect".