It’s unusual for a mathematical idea to spread through society. But such is the case with chaos theory, popularized by the butterfly effect, according to which the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas.
Ever since Galileo and Newton, physics and mathematics have been permeated by the question of determinism. Although science initially seemed capable of predicting everything, by the end of the 19th century it had to recognize the infinite complexity of the world and the practical impossibility of predicting the future on the basis of the present.
Here, Étienne Ghys traces the progress of some of the world’s greatest scientists, and shows us, in a highly accessible way, the conceptual scope of mathematical abstraction.
