In the 1960s, MIT professor and meteorologist Edward Lorenz found something strange when he rounded the number .506127 to .506 in a weather modeling program it shifted weather pattern predictions over the next two months. This decimal change of less than 0.0001 led to his “Butterfly Effect” proffering that a tornado in Texas could be caused by a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil yes, mentioned in Jurassic Park.
Lorenz taught us that precision matters. Trouble starts when “fake” precision uses exact numbers to emphasize something that cannot be correctly presented in accurate terms. The confusion is when extreme accuracy in reported numbers can be true or misleading we often cannot know.
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Space Sweepers, a new South Korean blockbuster on Netflix from 5 February, follows a crew of misfits living among Earth’s orbital space debris. Their luck changes when they discover a humanoid robot.
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Heartwarming‘s accounts of how different animals stay warm (and cool) on planet Earth lead us deep into evolutionary territory as social psychologist Hans Rocha IJzerman explains how temperature has shaped human behaviour.
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The Science and Belief in Society podcast creates engaging conversations with historians and scientists all round the world to discover how science is shaped by history, belief systems and everyday behaviours.