in retrospect

now i finally understand that Channel News Asia's advertisement. The one about somewhere in the world a butterfly flapping it's wing and how somewhere else it has set off a storm.

it's about the Chaos Theory!

Just a small change in the initial conditions can drastically change the long-term behaviour of a system.

"The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does." - Ian Stewart