0 a situation in which an action or change that does not seem important has a very large effect, especially in other places or around the world:
And so we had the butterfly effect that was US households defaulting on their loans quickly causing chaos around the world.
Chaos theory relies on the idea of the "butterfly effect", that even slight imbalances in starting conditions lead to huge final variations in outcome because of the fundamental instability of the system.
He says the butterfly effect does show up in the huge super computer models now used to forecast the weather.
Perhaps you are aware of the so-called butterfly effect, the principle from chaos theory that suggests a simple event (a wing flap) can cause a cascade of other events.
The Butterfly Effect: It is sometimes said that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in one part of the world can cause a hurricane on the other side of the globe.
