The butterfly effect

4.5 billion years ago the moon was created, so today Sophie and I got very very wet.

What happened in between?

Well now, if you're sitting comfortably, I'll tell you a story.

"...one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever."

The Butterfly Effect or more technically "sensitive dependence on initial conditions" says that the a single event no matter how big or small anywhere in the world can have an massive effect somewhere completely different.

So as you now know, the moon was created at the best guess - around 4.5 billion years ago, and ever since has been swinging round the earth on a very accurately predictable orbit. This orbit is egg shaped, and so sometimes it's several thousand miles closer to the earth than others.

Right now, it's as close as it ever gets.

This means there are a lot of moon related photos on blip.

It also means that the high tides are much higher than usual.

143 years ago, in Dumbarton, Scotland a Tea Clipper was launched.

It was called the Cutty Sark. It was in service for so long that in 1954 it was installed at Greenwich, London. It was being restored, until one day in 2007 a cleaner left an appliance switched on, and it set a fire on the ship that burned for several hours. This delayed the completion of the repairs until 2012.

Now, let me take you to Singapore, on the 6th July 2005.

The 2012 Olympic games have just been awarded to London.

By May of 2012, terrorism is a constant threat, but in a show of strength and as a warning to any would-be trouble makers, the British Navy docked an aircraft carrier in Greenwich on a bank holiday weekend.

In 2010, a young product designer living just down the road from this place moved out of London and away from a part of the world that he was really very fond of.

Two years later, it's today, and a wave has just formed in the North Sea.

The young designer is now an engineer and he's taking his girlfriend back to Greenwich because it's a bank holiday weekend. She's also never been there, and the local landmark by the name of the 'Cutty Sark' has not long ago been restored to its former glory and opened to the public.

The engineer takes some photos of the Cutty Sark to put on Blip later that evening.

The tide is very high, and the wave rolls up the Thames, past the barrier.

Turning round to make his way to the river boat, the engineer notices an aircraft carrier moored just up the river, and goes to have a look.

The Thames Clipper boat he and his girlfriend would have caught, arrives and departs, just as the wave passes Greenwich pier.

Standing with 30 other people by the rivers edge, the engineer and his girlfriend on her first visit to Greenwich village have just taken their cameras out to take a photo, just as the clipper boat they didn't get on because the Cutty Sark had been unveiled, powers its way through the wave that has been traveling for so long.

The wake caused by the boat combines with the wave which coupled with a very high-tide caused by the moon being abnormally close, forces a very wet wall of water to crash over the river bank onto a very specific 3ft x 3ft square of thames path.

Somewhere in the world a butterfly flaps its wings, and a young engineer and his girlfriend get soaked head to foot on a cold day in Greenwich.