What is the Butterfly Effect? ‘The Flash’ time travel concept, explained

DC’s The Flash talks about the consequences of time travel and how one miniscule change could lead to massive alterations in the future. For example, if Barry’s mother still lived, Barry would have never received his powers and created a world without meta-humans. It’s such a huge price to pay for preventing a death of a loved one.

Another way to explain why the timeline changes in The Flash is through the time travel concept called the “Butterfly Effect,” which Barry mentions offhand to Bruce Wayne while debating his plans. You’d hear this concept whenever somebody talks about time travel, but what does it actually mean? And could one small change really make a huge difference in the timeline?

What is the Butterfly Effect? The Flash time travel concept, explained

The way the Butterfly Effect was described in pop culture is that a butterfly could create a hurricane elsewhere just by flapping its wings. If you killed that butterfly, it could create ripple effects to alter the future. Basically, the Butterfly Effect is a concept that one small change can cause huge changes in the future.

This concept of time travel has been seen at least twice in The Flash. The first was when Barry prevented his mother’s death by putting a can of tomatoes into her cart, which led to her not getting killed, hence Barry doesn’t get his powers since he has no reason to be part of Central City Police. The second time is at the end of the film when Barry makes one tiny change by getting his father to look at the camera by moving the tomato can, in hopes it will help prove his innocence in the future. But in exchange, this leads to Ben Affleck‘s Batman being replaced by George Clooney.

It is important to note that The Butterfly Effect is different from The Domino Effect since the first concept is about no-so-obvious causes that lead to the chain of events (the butterfly flapping its wings to cause a hurricane). The second one implies that the causes of the events were more direct, just like dominoes falling down (e.g. skipping school affecting your grades, then your future, and so on).

Time travel may be confusing to grasp due to the numerous ways that it could be explained. While understanding paradoxes and alternate timelines could make one’s head boggle, at least the Butterfly Effect has a pretty simple explanation. One small change could have massive implications in the future.