Edward Lorenz, Father of Chaos Theory, Dies at 90

An anonymous reader writes "Professor Edward N. Lorenz, who discovered in 1961 that subtle changes in the initial conditions of a weather simulation program could cause very large differences in its results, died of cancer Wednesday at the age of 90. The contributions of the father of chaos theory, who coined the term 'the butterfly effect' and also discovered the Lorenz Attractor, are best summarized by the wording of the Kyoto Prize in 1991 which noted that his discovery of chaos theory 'profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind's view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton.'"

Comments

Died of cancer... but why?

[DamienRBlack]

Why aren't they reporting that his cancer was caused by a zebra sneezing in the UK last fall under a fig tree. It seems quite relevant.

Re:Died of cancer... but why?

[JustOK]

I'm thinking that there probably shouldn't be a particular pattern to when the jokes are made.

Re:Died of cancer... but why?

[smallfries]

Besides, decades of research have improved those models to the extent that we can accurately predict the weather anywhere up to 20mins in the future.