Butterfly Effect and Problems Solving

Butterfly Effect

Butterfly effect in simple words is, something as small as flap of a butterfly wings can cause a chain of huge actions. Even a nuclear war between US and USSR (Long time ago!)

In the other way round, cause for some of the large problems and events that we experience today could be something really small as we could never imagine.

Examples of Butterfly Effect

Massive ecological changes in Yellow Stone National Park after reintroducing wolves in 1995

Courtesy of government’s predator control program, wolves went extinct from the park by mid 1900s. And that affected the balance of the entire eco system resulting number of issues. Once wolves were reintroduced in 1995 (14 of them in 1995 and another 17 in 1996) park’s entire eco system were changed within a span couple of years. Grass banks started to grow again in valleys, Forest started to grow, and number of new species were moved in and contributed to the eco system. And by the whole sequence of actions, it changed a path of a river as well. All these were started with just 14 wolves.

Watch this video on how Yellow Stone were transformed after introducing Wolves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

Rejection of Art application lead to World War II

In 1905 young Adolf Hitler applied to the academy of fine arts in Vienna which unfortunately were rejected twice. Somehow the Second World War happened and about 80 million people  (3% of world population by then) were paid their lives in span of 7 years.

Problem Solving in Software Engineering

Day to day job of a Software Engineer is solving problems. Before implementing a fix to problem, first thing is to solve it. The way you approach the problem, the way you breakdown the problem into pieces plays a big role in solving it. And that defines how good you as a Software Engineer.

“You can’t see the picture if you are within the frame”

You should try to think out of the box as much as possible. Take couple of steps back and try to get out of the problem as much as you can and see it in a wider angle. Then only you can see new routes towards the Answer.

Always believe in the inverse of butterfly effect. More often than not the root cause of a large problem can be a small fix as commenting a single line of code or changing logic in one single method. Changing a variable name to an appropriate one could help to improve the readability and then help to see through the problem much easier.

Be lazy and smart!