Father of Chaos theory dies at 90

Chaos theory revolutionised scientific thought across many fields in a way that is rarely seen in science. The father of the field, Edward Lorentz, has died aged 90, in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the USA. He was a professor at MIT in Cambridge.

In the early 60s, Lorentz worked originally with weather systems and noticed how small changes in initial conditions in his models led to large divergence in outcome. His important paper in the early 70s, "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?", popularised the so called butterfly effect. His work also uncovered the "Lorentz attractor" familiar to anyone with some knowledge of chaos theory. From MIT, "Lorenz, who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975, won numerous awards, honors and honorary degrees. In 1983, he and former MIT Professor Henry M. Stommel were jointly awarded the $50,000 Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, a prize established to recognize fields not eligible for Nobel Prizes."

See MIT.