Edward Lorenz (1917-2008)

[Chris Nuttall]

Don't know how many of you had heard about this, but Edward Lorenz, the father of Chaos Theory, has passed away at the age of 90. He discovered deterministic chaos while running weather models that somehow produced vastly different results, even though the same exact calculations were being performed. I'm sure most of you have heard the term he used to describe this...the "butterfly effect."

Here's the article from CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/16/lorenz.obit.ap/index.html

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

"Lorenz also was incredibly quiet. Getting him to talk was painfully difficult, his colleagues said, except around his late wife, Jane. He rarely wrote papers with others."

Myself and several other grad students had the opportunity to each lunch with him a few years back... that quote pretty much sums it up. Very quiet guy, but freindly when you were able to get him to speak. Seemed very humble.