In the 1960s, Ed Lorenz tried to create a basic computer simulation of the Earth's atmosphere. He discovered that a slight perturbation in the starting condition of his model would result in a completely different weather prediction after only a few iterations. Lorenz had discovered sensitive dependence on initial conditions: systems can be deterministic, but completely unpredictable.
Below is a visualization of the three dimensions of Lorenz's weather model. Five replicates of the system are initialized with very slight differences in starting conditions. Learn more about the Lorenz system.
