被引用4000次的论文标题

 

享年90，今年四月辞世的Edward N.Lorenz（ May 23, 1917 – April 16, 2008）的著名论文《可预测性：巴西一只蝴蝶煽动翅膀会引起得克萨斯州的龙卷风吗？》1972年发表后，已经被引用了4000次以上。

论文的标题，从中文中看不出奇妙处，从原文中看就明显了。一篇讨论科学问题的论文，可以压韵，可以读成诗。这不是偶然的，而是作者采纳了同事的建议，将原计划采用的实例海鸥更改为了蝴蝶，不影响科学结论，但论文的标题比以前好读多了。

论文的英文标题是：

Predictability： Does the Flap of Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off  a Tornado in Texas？

其中的Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil 与Tornado in Texas都压了头韵。

论文的引用率，自然主要取决于内容。但题目制作精巧，读起来朗朗上口，无疑可以锦上添花，更利于流传。许多读者是忽略了标题的制作的。混沌理论借助于美的意象传达，蝴蝶为论文增色不少。能达到“蝴蝶效应”这篇论文的境界的非常少。

蝴蝶效应让人们轻易地记住了混沌理论的精髓——一个系统中的微小变化，可能产生意想不到的巨大影响。

延伸阅读：

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/obit-lorenz-0416.html

Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory and butterfly effect, dies at 90

April 16, 2008

Edward Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist who tried to explain why it is so hard to make good weather forecasts and wound up unleashing a scientific revolution called chaos theory, died April 16 of cancer at his home in Cambridge. He was 90.

A professor at MIT, Lorenz was the first to recognize what is now called chaotic behavior in the mathematical modeling of weather systems. In the early 1960s, Lorenz realized that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere--or a model of the atmosphere--could trigger vast and often unsuspected results.

These observations ultimately led him to formulate what became known as the butterfly effect--a term that grew out of an academic paper he presented in 1972 entitled: "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"

Lorenz's early insights marked the beginning of a new field of study that impacted not just the field of mathematics but virtually every branch of science--biological, physical and social. In meteorology, it led to the conclusion that it may be fundamentally impossible to predict weather beyond two or three weeks with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Some scientists have since asserted that the 20th century will be remembered for three scientific revolutions--relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos.

"By showing that certain deterministic systems have formal predictability limits, Ed put the last nail in the coffin of the Cartesian universe and fomented what some have called the third scientific revolution of the 20th century, following on the heels of relativity and quantum physics," said Kerry Emanuel professor of atmospheric science at MIT. "He was also a perfect gentleman, and through his intelligence, integrity and humility set a very high standard for his and succeeding generations."
 
Born in 1917 in West Hartford, Conn., Lorenz received an AB in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1938, an AM in mathematics from Harvard University in 1940, an SM in meteorology from MIT in 1943 and an ScD in meteorology from MIT in 1948. It was while serving as a weather forecaster for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II that he decided to do graduate work in meteorology at MIT.

"As a boy I was always interested in doing things with numbers, and was also fascinated by changes in the weather," Lorenz wrote in an autobiographical sketch.

Lorenz was a member of the staff of what was then MIT's Department of Meteorology from 1948 to 1955, when he was appointed to the faculty as an assistant professor. He was promoted to professor in 1962 and was head of the department from 1977 to 1981. He became an emeritus professor in 1987.

Lorenz, who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975, won numerous awards, honors and honorary degrees. In 1983, he and former MIT Professor Henry M. Stommel were jointly awarded the $50,000 Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, a prize established to recognize fields not eligible for Nobel Prizes.

In 1991, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize for basic sciences in the field of earth and planetary sciences. Lorenz was cited by the Kyoto Prize committee for establishing "the theoretical basis of weather and climate predictability, as well as the basis for computer-aided atmospheric physics and meteorology." The committee added that Lorenz "made his boldest scientific achievement in discovering 'deterministic chaos,' a principle which has 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."

During leaves of absence from MIT, he held research or teaching positions at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.; the Department of Meteorology at the University of California at Los Angeles; the Det Norske Meteorologiske Insitutt in Oslo, Norway; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

An avid hiker and cross-country skier, Lorenz was active up until about two weeks before his death, his family said.

Lorenz is survived by three children, Nancy, Edward and Cheryl, and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 20, at the Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy St., Cambridge. The MIT News Office will update this announcement as more details become available.

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