ABSTRACT
If two more persons had been alive in the year 10,000 BC the earth’s population would be greater today by about 2,000 people, under an average annual exponential growth rate close to 0.000576 over that period. If two more humans had escaped death at infancy in the year 1,000,000 BC there would be one additional city of approximately 85,000 people on the globe in 1989. Or, would it be so? From the mathematical theory of chaos we now understand that slight changes in the initial conditions may have quite different end results, a phenomenon known as the ‘butterfly effect’ in Weather predictions.
