Friday, July 09, 2004
I bought "The Butterfly Effect" yesterday. No, I'm not an Ashton Kutcher fan..although I do like those tall boys (like John Mayer, hee hee). But I digress...
I bought the DVD because I have always been fascinated by time travel and the Chaos Theory. Apparently the phrase Butterfly Effect comes from a story by Ray Bradbury called "A Sound Of Thunder". You'll see why they named the theory as such when you read the story.
The simple explanation is that an infintesimile action in the past can create incrementally larger change in the future. Here's a good quote:
The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does.
Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist in the 1960's was performing an experiment on predicting the weather. He entered equations into a computer that would model the weather. One day, to save time he started in the middle of the sequence of equations instead of the beginning and he received results that evolved very differently than what he had originally input from beginning to end.
For whatever reason, this concept is always such a fascinating thing for me to wrap my mind around. Even movies like "Back To The Future" and "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" touch upon these theories, and I can't get enough of the subject.
I think I like this theory because it means that one simple meeting with a person could alter the path of your life. One single event could change everything. Even before my father's passing, this idea was always something that I have been completely interested in to the point of buying books about it. I watched all of the extra features on my DVD last night, because they explained a little about Chaos Threory and what it entails.
I think about that all the time, and I keep thinking, "Why didn't we just probe the doctors more about alternate procedures for my dad?" But you know what? We didn't do that. But I can't keep beating myself up over that. What if we decided to wait on the surgery, and my dad passed away at home because the tumor ruptured, would THAT be better? I don't think so. I'd like to think that we did everything we could, and my father did everything that he thought would work...but for some reason it just didn't work out.
The DVD has 2 different endings, the director's cut and the theatrical release. Both are extremely different, and I prefer the theatrical release, but I won't explain why. Go rent it or buy it if you haven't already seen it. Then watch the special features and gain a little more knowledge on the subject. It will really make you think about how different your life may have been, and the phrase "If only I had just done (insert event) instead, maybe things would be better" might not be so attractive.
I bought the DVD because I have always been fascinated by time travel and the Chaos Theory. Apparently the phrase Butterfly Effect comes from a story by Ray Bradbury called "A Sound Of Thunder". You'll see why they named the theory as such when you read the story.
The simple explanation is that an infintesimile action in the past can create incrementally larger change in the future. Here's a good quote:
The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does.
Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist in the 1960's was performing an experiment on predicting the weather. He entered equations into a computer that would model the weather. One day, to save time he started in the middle of the sequence of equations instead of the beginning and he received results that evolved very differently than what he had originally input from beginning to end.
For whatever reason, this concept is always such a fascinating thing for me to wrap my mind around. Even movies like "Back To The Future" and "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" touch upon these theories, and I can't get enough of the subject.
I think I like this theory because it means that one simple meeting with a person could alter the path of your life. One single event could change everything. Even before my father's passing, this idea was always something that I have been completely interested in to the point of buying books about it. I watched all of the extra features on my DVD last night, because they explained a little about Chaos Threory and what it entails.
I think about that all the time, and I keep thinking, "Why didn't we just probe the doctors more about alternate procedures for my dad?" But you know what? We didn't do that. But I can't keep beating myself up over that. What if we decided to wait on the surgery, and my dad passed away at home because the tumor ruptured, would THAT be better? I don't think so. I'd like to think that we did everything we could, and my father did everything that he thought would work...but for some reason it just didn't work out.
The DVD has 2 different endings, the director's cut and the theatrical release. Both are extremely different, and I prefer the theatrical release, but I won't explain why. Go rent it or buy it if you haven't already seen it. Then watch the special features and gain a little more knowledge on the subject. It will really make you think about how different your life may have been, and the phrase "If only I had just done (insert event) instead, maybe things would be better" might not be so attractive.
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