The Evening Sun

Tilting at Windmills: For Want of a Nail

Shelly Reuben November 13th, 2026

There are two much-fussed-over scientific theories that fascinate me. One is about the Tipping Point; the other is the Butterfly Effect.

Here are formal descriptions of each.

TIPPING POINT. From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Noun: the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place

BUTTERFLY EFFECT. From the Encyclopedia Britannica: idea in chaos theory that describes how small changes to a complex system’s initial conditions can produce dramatically different outcomes.

I’ll start my musings with the tipping point, since I was surprised to learn that such an obvious concept became a Nobel Prize awarded revelation. Particularly because the phenomenon reminds me of what I’ve long thought after luggage manufacturers finally added wheels to suitcases, i.e.: what took them so long?

Here are some instances of tipping points in history:

• British imposition of taxation without representation getting colonists sufficiently pissed off to declare their independence.

• King Louis XVI (and his crony-aristocrats) tyrannizing the French people to the point that they overturned the monarchy and invented … good grief … the guillotine.

• Soviet suppression of freedom ultimately resulting in the (non-violent) collapse of the Berlin Wall.

• The abolition movement, the underground railroad, and the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, all converging to end slavery. (Apocryphally, President Lincoln said about Stowe, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!")

When I was describing the concept of a ‘tipping point’ to my friend Jeannie, she blurted out, “Oh. You mean the straw that broke the camel’s back?”

Which was exactly right. The camel … or the final nail in the coffin … or the point of no return.

You get the drift.

That brings me to the second concept I sometimes muse about, which is the butterfly effect. This was largely popularized in the 1980s with mathematician / meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz’s description of how tornados are affected by perturbations as miniscule as a butterfly flapping its wings … the lesson being that small changes can affect monumental outcomes.

After reading about this for the first time, I shook my head in disbelief, because yet again, I was being informed about a new, “great idea” that I had learned about long ago in elementary school. You know it, too. We all do: It was taught to me as a proverb.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail

If you don’t think that is the butterfly effect, here are a few more examples to make your socks roll up and down:

• The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggering WW I.

• Isaac Newton’s observation of an apple falling off a tree, which led to his discovery of gravity.

• Alexander Fleming finding mold growing in Petri dish he’d left out in his lab for a month. But instead of tossing it into the garbage, it led to his discovery of penicillin.

I’m sure that there are countless more examples from history, but here are two scenarios I just made up that seem entirely apt.

TIPPING POINT: Harold Hobnob gets to work on time. Nevertheless, Roger Ruthless, his boss, berates him for being late. Later that morning, Harold turns in his assignment, letter perfect, before lunch. Yet again, Roger Ruthless finds fault. He crumples up Harold’s work product and tosses it in the waste basket, snapping, “Do it again.” Mild-mannered Harold does it again. However, when he resubmits it to you-know-who and gets the same response as before, instead of returning to his desk for yet another attempt to appease the unappeasable Roger Ruthless, Harold yanks a computer keyboard off the nearest desk, lifts it high overhead, and begins to beat his boss over the head. If he’d had a pistol, Harold would have shot him.

Harold had reached his tipping point.

BUTTEFLY EFFECT: Madeline LeRue was standing in line at Dunkin Donuts, waiting to order a cup of butter pecan swirl coffee. When she arrived at the counter, the server jutted his head toward a man just leaving the store and said, “He already paid for you, and said to tell you to have a nice day.” Touched by the gesture, Madeline bought coffee and donuts for her secretary, Beth, whom she usually ignored. Beth received both with a huge smile, and the words, “You just made my day.” Her glow from that act of kindness lasted until Beth got home and greeted Lionell, her hard-working husband, with a beautiful candle-lit dinner, and much affection. That night, the weariness both usually felt after a long day was nowhere in evidence as they made mad, passionate love. Nine months later, they were greeted by the long-awaited birth of their first child: Little Lionell, Jr. 7.7 pounds. 19.7 inches.