The seagull effect or…what’s all this flap about decimal rounding?
In 1961, Edward Lorenz was putting data into a weather prediction program and mistakenly entered 0.506 rather than the longer and more accurate 0.506127. Now, this was not really an error, was it? After all, we round to 3 decimal places all the time in high school Mathematics? However, the abbreviated entry resulted in a completely different weather model, and Lorenz marvelled at the incredible difference one small change could make to the larger outcomes within a defined system.
In a later paper on the subject, he commented that, “one flap of a seagull’s wings could change the course of weather forever”. Over time, the analogy morphed into, “the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas”, and the ‘Butterfly Effect’ was born.
Whatever the label, the core principle of this theory remains the same: that a seemingly small and insignificant action in one part of a system can become sufficiently amplified to bring about large-scale, high-impact change. The truth of this theory has been affirmed time and time again, across a wide range of fields. So, when you are rounding your decimal answers, remember that you may be making a big difference to the correct solution and enhancing the “seagull effect.”