Mark Daniell previews the Rugby World Cup semi-finals.
Mark Daniell
Chaos theory states that because of its incomprehensibly complex structure, the universe and everything in it is unpredictable. Established in the twentieth century, the idea is accepted as ‘good enough for now’ by most budding astrophysicists, and lately it would seem by most rugby fans too.
The theory suggests that the tiniest influence, so easily overlooked at source, can have a monumental effect somewhere else, and is most famously illustrated by the Butterfly Effect: a butterfly flapping its wings in London may cause a hurricane in Mexico. (Interestingly, the inverse effect has yet to be studied, but it has been suggested that a combination of global warming and the ‘Hurricane Effect’ is responsible for something of an extermination of London’s butterflies.)
Either way, a classic example of this was witnessed over the weekend when the chief executive of Australian rugby, John O’Neill, famously stated that he hated the English.
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