if a butterfly flaps it wings off the coast of Africa?

Question

what is the rest of this saying

Answer 1

It's not really a saying... more of a concept which is generally referred to these days as 'the butterfly effect'. If you're looking for the original way it was expressed, you're going to find about a dozen different versions:

Earliest popular expressions of the butterfly effect include the whole movie of 'It's a Wonderful Life' and a Ray Bradbury story 'A Sound of Thunder'. Neither of which involved tornadoes coming from butterfly wings. The term 'butterfly effect' comes from Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist. He once had a speech titled, "Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?"

That's probably as close as you're going to get. Or you can just adapt it to your own purposes!

Answer 2

I think the saying is like this...
...if a butterfly flaps it's wings off the coast of Africa, that the cumulative effects of having moved the air can eventually add up to a typhoon in Madagascar.

Sorry...I don't know much about it...but coincidentally, read that line some short time back...hope that helps!

Answer 3

The sci fi movie, "The butterfly effect" showed how small changes could affect the course of history if they were positioned in the right place at the proper time. When small changes persist, they can have a large effect over time.

There is also something known as, "Sensitive dependence on intial conditions", which means that the result is contained and tempered by the actions executed in the intial stages. For example, you lose your car keys and therefore can't go to a ball game. You stay home and miss your buddies, who went to the game. You miss out on some business information, due to a conversation you missed, information that would have made your life quite different. So, you don't go down that path.

"For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost".

"For want of a horseshoe, the horse was crippled"

"For want of a horse, the message was not delivered"

"For want of a message, the battle was lost"

"For the want of a battle won, the war was lost"


So, because the horseshoe didn't have a nail holding it on, the entire war was lost to the enemy. That's the butterfly effect.

Answer 4

The wings of a butterfly can cause a hurricane. The Butterfly effect. Or maybe an easier explanation. When you throw a pebble in the ocean it can cause a tidal wave? Basically what its saying is that every action has a result. Say for instance I tell my friend a joke, he tells a friend the same joke so on so forth. Eventually the whole world is telling it and it becomes a craze! It then sparks off a young comedians bum life in a glorious career and he becomes rich and famous and saves 3rd world citizens.

This is the butterfly effect.