OED SF database (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mark Mandel]

Yes to that! But there are two butterflies in this garden, both
effecting great changes from tiny causes.

One is Heinlein's butterfly, whose death in the Jurassic (?) era tips
a close election in our time, a change invisible to all but the time
travelers who left Present[0] and returned to Present[1].

I don't know who gets credit for the other butterfly, which is
associated with chaos theory. (Terry Pratchett used it, but didn't
come up with it.) This one flaps its wing, & the tiny air movement
eventually causes a hurricane half a world away.

m a m
(Sent from my PDA)


On 8/18/08, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> "to butterfly", not in OED or OED SF database
>
> To implement "the butterfly effect".  OED has [1972] and 1979 for
> "Butterfly effect", but should somehow reference Ray Bradbury's story
> "The Sound of Thunder" (published in _Collier's_ June 28, 1952), in
> which a time traveller steps on a butterfly in the time of dinosaurs,
> and changes human history.
>
>  Jun 17 2006, 7:32 pm
> "If you really want to butterfly Heinlein, have him
> elected to the California State Assembly in 1938. "
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/d47d4a990fbd7e40?
> hl=en
>
> Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
Mark Mandel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org