What if everything that seemed random could be credited to human ignorance of an underlying process? What if every stone on every path, every speck of dust, even every atom is a contributing factor to your future, the world’s future and maybe the universe’s future? What if the flap of a butterfly’s dainty little wings causes a thunderstorm in a land far away?
This is the butterfly effect - a series of domino actions, starting from one single, small, seemingly insignificant act which can have universe-wide repercussions.
Let’s take a look back at the early 1900s. This was a time when things were uncertain. The war had its claws deep in every corner of the world. All men were on battlegrounds, facing the wrath of every weapon known to mankind. To add to this, nature also waged a war on its children. People were dying from bacterial diseases that took too many lives too soon. That was when a mould became our messiah. This mould, now known to us all as penicillin, saved millions of lives both in and away from the battlefield. Many soldiers were able to return home because of its magical healing. This mould was discovered due to the ‘small insignificant act’ of not cleaning the Petri dishes containing a bacterial culture. This act saved the lives of our forefathers and by default ours and that of the generations to come. Any invention made in the future will owe its creation to a person, who in turn will owe their life to penicillin- discovered by Dr. Flemming. In this way, due to a series of seemingly unrelated events, the course of the future was decided by one man who slacked off from some of his work for a few days.
History repeats itself and once again we find ourselves in the clutches of yet another sinister disease, the COVID-19. Each of us needs to remember the mammoth that ripples, our seemingly insignificant acts can create and take precautionary measures, that may have an effect in drastically reducing the spread of this pandemic.
It’s an interesting world we live in, where each truth has a million alternative realities, that can change everything so completely. We all live in just one of these truths. Such is the law of the universe. The universe is magnificently big, and we are infinitesimally tiny in comparison to it. But, that does not make us insignificant. Every decision made by the generations before us continues to shape our lives and everything we do, will in turn shape the lives of the generations to come. We all are the real examples of the butterfly effect, the flutter of our wings will lead to thunderstorms far away in space and time.
