In 1963, Edward Lorenz (1917-2008), studied convection in the Earth’s atmosphere. As the Navier-Stokes equations that describe fluid dynamics are very difficult to solve, he simplified them drastically. The model he obtained probably has little to do with what really happens in the atmosphere. It is a toy-model, but Lorenz soon realised that it as very interesting in a mathematical sense. There are only three parameters in the model so that each point (x,y,z) symbolises a state of the atmosphere.
