Obituaries

The meteorologist who formulated chaos theory

Edward Lorenz

1917–2008

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One day in 1961, Edward Lorenz, then an assistant professor of meteorology at MIT, was using a primitive Royal McBee LPG-30 computer to produce sample models of weather patterns. Programming the machine with 12 different equations, Lorenz came up with a set of figures. He decided to double-check them, but rather than run the entire calculation again, he used a shortcut in which the figures were rounded off—to 0.506, for instance, instead of 0.506127. He was astonished to get back vastly different results, and to Lorenz, the implications were staggering. If such variables as temperature, air pressure, or humidity were off by even a tiny fraction of a percent, Lorenz concluded, a weather pattern predicted to cause rain in Las Vegas could instead materialize as a blizzard in Beijing a week later.

Lorenz had stumbled upon chaos theory, “the third great scientific revolution of the 20th century,” said the Los Angeles Times, “along with relativity and quantum physics.” Lorenz’s discovery showed that even “very small changes in a system can have very large and unexpected consequences.” In 1972, after being largely ignored, Lorenz presented his findings in a paper memorably titled “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” Lorenz later said “that he had planned to use a gull as an illustration, but that a colleague suggested that a butterfly would have more impact. He chose Brazil for its alliterative value.” Lorenz’s tantalizing work was soon enshrined as the “butterfly effect.”

Born in West Hartford, Conn., Lorenz seemed destined to be a scientist, said The Washington Post. “As a boy I was always interested in doing things with numbers and was also fascinated by changes in the weather,” he recalled. After attending Dartmouth as an undergraduate and getting a masters from Harvard, he was a weather forecaster for the Army during World War II. In 1948, he received a doctorate in meteorology from MIT and joined its faculty, remaining there for the rest of his career.

Lorenz’s theories would be used to predict everything from the size of snowflakes to box-office receipts, said the London Times. In 1983, he shared in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Crafoord Prize, “set up to recognize fields not eligible for Nobel prizes.” In 1991, when he received the Kyoto Prize for earth and planetary sciences, the committee said he had “brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind’s view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton.” By one estimate, Lorenz’s seminal 1972 paper has been cited in more than 4,000 subsequent papers, making it one of the most referenced scientific studies in modern history.

Quiet and unassuming, Lorenz “enjoyed cross-country skiing and hiking in the Appalachians, and was hillwalking until a week before his death,” said the London Telegraph. Perhaps appropriately, in light of his development of chaos theory, “his own office was a remarkably chaotic space.” Several years ago, some graduate students “uncovered piles of papers and research on which he had worked in the 1950s, and which had never been published.

The keyboardist who rocked the house with Bruce Springsteen

Danny Federici

1950–2008

Every rock group, it seems, has a member known as “the quiet one.” For Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, it was Danny Federici, who died last week after a three-year battle with melanoma. Federici literally shunned the spotlight and was so retiring that Springsteen called him “Phantom Dan.” But his masterful electric keyboard playing was an essential element of E Street’s R&B-influenced, blue-collar sound. When Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, he said that Federici “brought the boardwalks of Central and South Jersey alive in my music.”

Growing up in Flemington, N.J., Federici at first played the accordion, said The Philadelphia Inquirer. His mother, he recalled, “wanted me to be friends with Wayne Newton and play the Vegas thing. But the girls weren’t digging it.” Shortly after entering the NuPower Conservatory of Music in Philadelphia, he met a teacher who introduced him to jazz and blues. “Two weeks later he dropped out of the conservatory to follow his own muse.” With various combinations of singers, guitarists, and drummers, Federici was soon playing clubs all over New Jersey. In 1969, while with the hard rock band Child, he invited Springsteen—“this skinny guy with long hair and a ratty T-shirt,” as Federici recalled him—to join them. Child eventually morphed into the E Street Band. Although Federici didn’t play on Springsteen’s 1973 debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., he did appear on the follow-up, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.

Federici’s “contributions to the grandeur and emotional resonance of Springsteen’s songs can’t be overestimated,” said The Buffalo News. Among his signature moments were his “searing” organ solo on “Kitty’s Back,” his keyboard-operated glockenspiel work on “Born to Run,” and his soaring interlude on “Hungry Heart.” His “genius sprung from his unerring ability to weave his chordal figures and melodic lines into the full fabric of the E Street Band’s massive sound.” But despite his centrality to the group, Federici preferred not to call attention to himself. “I never showed up for the shows until I had to, and I never hung around,” he said. “I wasn’t into the schmoozing, hanging out, and all the stuff that goes with it.”

Federici released two solo albums, “but never really established himself as a solo artist,” said the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger. “And he had a drinking problem, spending two stints in rehab” before kicking the habit in 1983. Though he took a leave of absence from the band last November for melanoma treatments, Federici, who is survived by his wife and three children, returned for one last performance, on March 20 in Indianapolis. “During my drinking binges over the years I must have quit the band three or four times,” he reflected. “I was always talked back into it, which I’m grateful for.”