In 2005, we all witnessed, via the international
media, the devastation that hurricanes caused in property damage and loss of life. Katrina alone
almost destroyed New Orleans and flooded other portions of the US Gulf Coast; other hurricanes
ravaged parts of Mexico and the Caribbean.
Scientists the world over
are aware of the butterfly effect: A butterfly flaps its wings in some part of the world and starts
a chain of nonlinear effects that can result in a hurricane striking anywhere on the planet.
That butterfly must be
found and stopped!
On the one hand, that butterfly
may be unaware of the grave consequences of its actions; still, measures must be taken to ensure
that it ceases its wing fluttering, or at least modifies it to avoid exciting particularly large
wind modes. The butterfly should be held liable for the harm done and should probably pay punitive
damages as well.
On the other hand, it is
possible that the butterfly in question may be acting with evil intent; in that case the full weight
of the law should be brought to bear. The butterfly should be incarcerated, have its wings forcibly
restrained, and work out its punishment through forced labor.
But wait. What if the 2005
hurricanes were caused not by a single butterfly but by several? A careful study of the characteristics
of each storm may disclose a different modus operandi or wing-print set for each. If a group of butterflies
is indeed involved, then we may be looking at a case of outright terrorism; possible links to Al Qaeda
and other terrorist organizations should be explored. Visions of Lepidoptera terrorist
training camps spring suddenly to mind. Specially trained agents (who are surely also trained
to appear as harmless as possible, and so blend in with your common garden-variety butterflies)
can inflict terrible harm, so it is imperative that such camps be located and ruthlessly destroyed.
Since rock has a much higher
density than air, it is debatable whether a single butterfly could also cause a large earthquake.
However, the possibility cannot be dismissed that a particularly robust butterfly or a well-coordinated
butterfly cell, trained to take advantage of in situ tectonic stress, could do it. The magnitude-9.2
earthquake that caused a tsunami and terrible damage in Southeast Asia might have been a heretofore
unsuspected instance of the butterfly effect. Current seismic hazard estimates will have to be
recalculated to account for butterfly activity.
This is a call for international
police and intelligence agencies, and schoolchildren with nets, to immediately launch a cooperative
effort to locate the butterfly or butterflies responsible for recent natural disasters. This
task will not be easy, since the propagating mode of the butterfly effect is essentially random;
but it may be facilitated if all responsible citizens (especially physicists, who are trained
to be particularly observant) help by reporting any suspicious-looking butterflies they come
across.
What can be done beyond
the immediate future? Government bans on nonlinearity might help reduce the incidental butterfly
effect, but it would prove useless against rogue butterfly activities. The answer is this: Since
the butterfly effect is a physical one, all members of the physics community should apply their
knowledge and skills to devising ways to counteract the effect or, better yet, rechannel its energy
into power production for peaceful uses.
Physicists of the world,
unite against the butterfly effect!
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