Far Thunder (Ray Bradbury)
Distant thunder , even a thunderclap (orig. A Sound of Thunder ) is a science fiction - short story of the American writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). It was first published in Collier’s magazine in 1952 and also appeared in the short story collections The Golden Apples of the Sun and Dinosaur Stories .
action
In the year 2055: A man named Eckels enters the company Zeit-Safari GmbH and is fascinated by the idea of traveling back in time and hunting animals.
After paying, he travels to prehistoric times with a group led by Mr. Travis because Eckels wants to kill a real dinosaur . Mr. Travis points out to Eckels that he must never leave the path of the time machine and not touch anything, because otherwise the past and thus the future would be changed.
But when Eckels sees a real Tyrannosaurus Rex , he gets scared and panics, whereby he makes a serious mistake and steps on a butterfly. This event changes a lot in the present, to which they return and find a joyless, colorless and totalitarian ruled world.
meaning
The story covers aspects of chaos theory later known as the butterfly effect. These theories suggest that a tiny change in the initial conditions of a system can have a major impact on the outcome.
Although both use a butterfly as an example of similar phenomena, there is no evidence that they influenced each other. Bradbury's story appeared ten years before Edward N. Lorenz 's example, and Lorenz first used a seagull as an example.
filming
The short story served as the template for the science fiction film A Sound of Thunder , with Oscar-winning actress Ben Kingsley and Edward Burns in the lead roles.
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