Edward Norton Lorenz (
May 23,
1917 –
April 16,
2008) was an American
mathematician and
meteorologist, and a pioneer of
chaos theory. He discovered the
strange attractor notion and
coined the term
butterfly effect.
Early career
Lorenz was born in
West Hartford, Connecticut. He studied mathematics at both
Dartmouth College in
New Hampshire and
Harvard University in
Cambridge,
Massachusetts. During
World War II, he served as a weather forecaster for the
United States Army Air Corps. After his return from the war, he decided to study
meteorology. Lorenz earned two degrees in the area from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he later was a professor for many years.
Research
Lorenz built a
mathematical model of the way air moves around in the
atmosphere. As Lorenz studied
weather patterns he began to realize that they did not always change as predicted. Minute variations in the initial values of variables in his twelve variable
computer weather model (c. 1960) would result in grossly divergent
weather patterns. This sensitive dependence on initial conditions came to be known as the
butterfly effect.
Lorenz went on to explore the underlying mathematics and published his conclusions in a seminal work titled Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow, in which he described a relatively simple system of equations that resulted in a very complicated dynamical object now known as the Lorenz attractor.
He was awarded the Kyoto Prize in 1991 and cited for "profoundly [influencing] 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.
Later life
Lorenz continued to be active in his work well into his seventies, winning the
Kyoto Prize for basic sciences, in the field of earth and planetary sciences, in 1991. In his later years, he lived in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was an avid outdoorsman, who enjoyed hiking, climbing, and cross-country skiing. He kept up with these pursuits until very late in his life, and managed to continue most of his regular activities until only a few weeks before his death. According to his daughter, Cheryl Lorenz, Lorenz had "finished a paper a week ago with a colleague. On
April 16,
2008, Lorenz died at his home in Cambridge at the age of 90, having suffered from
cancer.
Awards
Professor Emeritus at MIT since 1981, Lorenz has received many awards for his work, including:
Selected publications
- 1955 Available potential energy and the maintenance of the general circulation. Tellus. Vol.7
- 1963 Deterministic nonperiodic flow. Journal of Atmospheric Sciences. Vol.20 : 130—141 link .
- 1967 The nature and theory of the general circulation of atmosphere. World Meteorological Organization. No.218
- 1969 Three approaches to atmospheric predictability. American Meteorological Society. Vol.50
- 1976 Nondeterministic theories of climate change. Quaternary Research. Vol.6
- 1990 Can chaos and intransitivity lead to interannual variability? Tellus. Vol.42A
- 2005 Designing Chaotic Models. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences: Vol. 62, No. 5, pp. 1574–1587.
References
External links
