Disproportionality
Lorenz's experiments illustrated something called sensitive dependence on initial conditions, or the idea that very small changes in a system's inputs could make it go crazy in the long run. In other words, small changes can have big effects, and that makes things like the weather unpredictable. The reason this seems so strange is because of disproportionality.
Lorenz let his computer chug away, printing out numbers that showed patterns in his simulated weather. He would pick a variable and have the computer print a single letter surrounded by spaces to represent the state of that variable at each point in time. Every minute represented a day. He started the simulation and watched the printed line of letters sweep back and ...
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