The proverbial butterfly effect? Yes, that butterfly, the one that flaps its wings in Florida and two days later causes a hailstorm in Enumclaw. Is it real? Or is it as popular legend, but only a legend and not true? I worked with many graduate students, helping them get their Masters and Doctors degrees. When they were stuck on a scientific problem it was helpful to have them find an analogy in regular life they could think about without the pressure of science looming over them. Let’s try that here.

Daily life is made up of a series of small events: cooking food, going to the store, meeting people, stopping for traffic lights, etc. Most of the time such events, while they might make a small change in our daily routines, do not change the rest of our lives. This year my wife Helen and I will celebrate 55 happy and satisfying years of marriage. But it took an extraordinary series of small unrelated events to bring us together.

I was raised a Catholic and Helen was raised a Presbyterian. Moreover I was a senior in college and Helen was a senior in high school. This was not a likely scenario for meeting.

The first unrelated event was Helen and her girl friend deciding to go on a summer mission to Haiti sponsored by her church. Once the mission was over the church allowed the young people to go home by themselves if they had their parent’s permission. Helen and her friend, getting the necessary permission, toured the U.S. by bus, staying at the homes of friends and relatives (unrelated event two). There was the annual camping trip coming up to the Washington coast over Labor Day planned by her church for the young people. However, due to the vagaries of bus travel, Helen and her friend missed the church bus that went to the beach (unrelated event three).

My friend Karl, in order to play basketball on Helen’s church’s basketball team had started going to Helen’s church (unrelated event four). The youth minister had two cute daughters (unrelated event five). Both Karl and I were very serious college students, and kept our noses in a book most of the time. Consequently, we had never had serious girlfriends (unrelated event six). Karl found out about the church youth camping trip to the ocean and thought if we camped at the same campground, we might meet the youth minister’s daughters.

Helen’s family didn’t have a car, so Helen and her friend had to find a ride, and even though they were late, decided to go anyway (unrelated event seven). They found a ride with her friend’s brother and arrived late. Karl didn’t know it, but the youth minister had taken a call to go to another church so neither he nor his cute daughters were not at the campground (unrelated event eight).

Not knowing the minister’s daughters were not at the campground, Karl and I hung out outside of where they were supposed to be camping waiting for them to walk out on the beach. The daughters didn’t walk out, but Helen and her friend did (unrelated event nine). Soon after in Seattle, when my other friend met Helen for the first time he predicted that I would marry her. He said she liked to kid, and I could take it. Fifty-five years later Helen still likes to kid, and I can still take it.

Each one of the unrelated events had to form an unbroken chain to bring about our meaning. And at the end of the chain Helen and I had to have that spark that made us want to meet up again in Seattle. One break in the chain and my whole life would have been different. The chances of that chain of events working out that way were very, very small. Each unrelated event was the equivalent to a butterfly flapping its wings.

Another example from our lives, is the making or missing of a traffic light. The vast majority of the time such a “flapping of a butterfly’s wings” makes no difference. However, if the traffic light causes us to miss a plane flight that subsequently crashes it can.

Now I think that you can answer the butterfly question for yourselves. Most likely that butterfly, like most butterflies, will flap its wings, but only cause a slight stir in the air that will quickly dissipate in the vast atmosphere. However there is a slight, very slight chance that…

Editor’s note: How has your life been affected by the butterfly effect? Let us know if a Letter to the Editor by emailing editor@courierherald.com.