The concept was popularized by , a meteorologist and mathematician, in the early 1960s.

: When Lorenz plotted his weather variables, they formed a swirling, three-dimensional shape that strikingly resembled a butterfly . 2. Modern Applications

: Lorenz famously asked, "Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?". This wasn't meant to imply that a butterfly causes a tornado, but that it could be the "trigger" that shifts a sensitive, deterministic system onto a different path.

: While running weather simulations on a computer, Lorenz rounded an input from 0.506127 to 0.506 to save time. He expected a nearly identical result, but the minor change led to a completely different weather forecast.