Talk:A Sound of Thunder

Question of First Publish Date
The first publication date is now no longer under question.

http://www.unz.org/Pub/Colliers-1952jun28 shows the index of Collier's magazin, http://www.unz.org/Pub/Colliers-1952jun28-00020 has a copy as does http://64.62.200.70/PERIODICAL/PDF/Colliers-1952jun28/20-22/

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Ray_Bradbury.htm points to 1952 but does not list where it was published.

http://www.oldsfbooks.com/pst5401.html (Google cache http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Ai39JLYPTpkJ:www.oldsfbooks.com/pst5401.html+pulp+%22A+sound+of+thunder%22&hl=en) gives 1954, a later year, but includes an actual magazine.

http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/fictionmag/t477.htm is a little confusing, as it lists the July 1954 edition of Planet Stories, but after it, it says "ss Colliers Jun 28 ’52". Looking around the site, "ss" seems to refer to a contributor of this information, but Colliers is another pulp. Does this mean it's a reprint fron 1952?

http://www.hycyber.com/SF/planet_stories.html points to the 1954 date, January no less.

I once saw a wonderful pulp fiction index, with a nifty search engine, but I'm now unable to find it. Any help in sorting this out would be nice

lunaverse 00:06, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * More clues: http://www.moviefans.de/a-z/s/sound-of-thunder/ states it was in R is for Rocket. Needs more research.


 * I had a delightful discussion with myself, but managed to solve the mystery. This dead horse has been beaten plenty (at least, by me).


 * I would like to add however, my amazement that this story was written 10 years before Edward Lorenz discovered the Butterfly Effect, and the interesting coincidence between the name and Bradbury's time-changing character. I read this story long before I knew of Chaos Theory, and so when I first stumbled upon it (in Jurasic Park of all places), it made total sense *because* I'd read this story as a kid.


 * lunaverse 00:24, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One sided butterfly effect
I'm sorry, guys, but the story doesn't really make sense. OK, a human kills a butterfly with his shoe somewhere in the past, and everything changes. Now the funny part. If a human kills a "specially designated" dinosaur, the dying creature may kill tons of butterflies or other living things with its weight when it hits the ground. And nothing changes in the future after that? Am I being too critical or the story is just underdeveloped? Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy reading most of Bradbury's stories. KNewman 04:54, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, the specially designated dinosaurs were picked because they would have died seconds later. For example:  just after the T. rex in the story was killed, a large tree fell on it.  Ingiald729 00:58, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes. The idea is that the animals killed were about to die anyway.  They would not, say, kill a sick dinosaur that would die in a few days.  So the consequence of killing said animal is minimised.  Your contention is sort of valid though -- the animal no longer dies in the original manner and so the future may change because of it.    Piepants 23:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)Piepants


 * I have always thought that the changes wouldn't be so subtle. A small change back then should compound over time. The two presidential candidates shouldn't even have been born.


 * I agree that Bradbury should have taken into account quite a lot of different factors, but saying his whole story doesn't make sense is going a little too far. If you want to talk about details, the phenomenon known as the Butterfly Effect (in Chaos Theory) is about a flap from a butterfly wing causing a tornado. So just imagine what the consequences of a Machine appearing out of nowhere would be. Not only do you disturb the flow of the wind, you also bring back bacteria and such to the Future. Bradbury has a point for writing an interesting story, not for being overly scientific and coherent.


 * Scientifically, the story does not hold water, but I believe the story was not written to illustrate a scientific point, such as the so-called "butterfly effect". Bradbury wrote on social topics (e.g., see 451F), and the story should be viewed from that angle. The question is: why butterfly? Can one kill a butterfly by stepping on it? It would fly away.  From the "science" standpoint, it would be better to use a caterpillar in the story.  However, butterfly is the animal associated with Psyche, the Greek goddess of soul.  Thus, the metaphorical meaning of this story is this: you kill your soul, and the world becomes rotten. 72.165.80.2 (talk) 19:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Cacoon fell and the butterfly was just coming out. Simple as that ;) -G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.148.149 (talk) 02:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand the point Bradbury was making, but plotwise the story is rather contrived. The concerned scientists are taking no precautions but assuming that bunch of arrogant rich guys are going to adhere to what their guide tells them.  Read a recent newspaper if you think arrogant rich guys do that.  They could have taken precautions by building a railing on the Path, or building a shooting platform on the roof of the Time Machine, or not using time travel for trivial pursuits  --- Bradbury is odd about putting sudden violence in his stories.  In one Martian story a guy shoots several people for desecrating a Martian cultural site.   Here Travis wants to shoot Echols AFTER THE FACT for changing history.

2001:558:6011:1:1CA0:8880:2F90:A2F5 (talk) 12:16, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Unconstructive Edits
This article is being edited unconstructively several times a week. Does anyone know why this fairly low-profile article would be the subject of such attention? BreathingMeat (talk) 03:10, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Eckels Last Worlds
"He pleads to Travis to take him back into the past to undo the damage, but Travis refuses". This isn't actually true, Eckels sees the crushed boot and started to babble; he doesn't actually ask Travis if they can go back, because he knows they would have to somehow bring the butterfly back to life in order to undo the damage. Since they can't bring the butterfly back to life, they both know there isn't anything they can do to fix it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.88.143.1 (talk) 21:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * But, they have a time machine. They *can* change what has already happened. 63.87.189.17 (talk) 21:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In a book series based on this story, that's actually what they attempt to do, causing even more changes to the timestream. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.169.0.52 (talk) 02:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If Eckels goes back in his own time-line to just before his original trip, he could warn himself about the possible ramifications and stop the social change. A time-agent or Eckels or Travis could also travel back an prevent Eckels from leaving the safe trail. Drbits (talk) 22:50, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Meaning of the title
I'm not the creator of this section, but my conjecture as to the meaning of "a sound of thunder" (beyond its diagetic role in the story) is that it is a reference to H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine," in which the time traveller begins communication with the Eloi in this manner:


 * 'As they made no effort to communicate with me, but simply stood round me smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other, I began the conversation. I pointed to the Time Machine and to myself. Then hesitating for a moment how to express time, I pointed to the sun. At once a quaintly pretty little figure in chequered purple and white followed my gesture, and then astonished me by imitating the sound of thunder.


 * 'For a moment I was staggered, though the import of his gesture was plain enough. The question had come into my mind abruptly: were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children—asked me, in fact, if I had come from the sun in a thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended upon their clothes, their frail light limbs, and fragile features. A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind. For a moment I felt that I had built the Time Machine in vain.


 * 'I nodded, pointed to the sun, and gave them such a vivid rendering of a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so and bowed. Then came one laughing towards me, carrying a chain of beautiful flowers altogether new to me, and put it about my neck. The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they were all running to and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging them upon me until I was almost smothered with blossom. You who have never seen the like can scarcely imagine what delicate and wonderful flowers countless years of culture had created. Then someone suggested that their plaything should be exhibited in the nearest building, and so I was led past the sphinx of white marble, which had seemed to watch me all the while with a smile at my astonishment, towards a vast grey edifice of fretted stone. As I went with them the memory of my confident anticipations of a profoundly grave and intellectual posterity came, with irresistible merriment, to my mind.

A sound of thunder is the noise that heralds the time traveller's entry into the future:


 * [...] The fact is that, insensibly, the absolute strangeness of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine, above all, the feeling of prolonged falling, had absolutely upset my nerve. I told myself that I could never stop, and with a gust of petulance I resolved to stop forthwith. Like an impatient fool, I lugged over the lever, and incontinently the thing went reeling over, and I was flung headlong through the air.


 * 'There was the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything still seemed grey, but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hail-stones. [...]

DOOZ (talk) 15:10, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, the first editions of the story read:

''A Tyrannosaurus rex. The Thunder Lizard, the damnedest monster in history. Sign this release.''

Clearly Bradbury was thinking on a wrong etymology, perhaps misled by Spanish "trueno", that sounds like "tyrannos" (he should have chosen Brontosaurus instead, that does mean "Thunder Lizard"). This was later corrected, rendering the title meaningless, to ''A Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in history. Sign this release.''. Now, in spite of popular belief, "Tyrannos" does not mean "tyrant" either, but just "king", as in Latin "rex". Compare Sophocles' Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, translated to Latin as "Oedipus Rex" (and not Oedipus Tyrannus), and to English as "King Oedipus" (and not Tyrant Oedipus). Perhaps this should be noted in the main article for the story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trucoto (talk • contribs) 14:17, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Cultural impact
There's a song called "Sound Of Thunder" on Duran Duran's 1981 eponymous debut album. It's at least partially inspired by Bradbury's story, and includes the lyric "I'm the man who stepped off the path". 68.160.31.144 (talk) 08:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Plot summary
"The first year mentioned is 2055, but before this it has already gone back a year and a decade, so it takes place in 2066." This sentence makes no sense to me. I would try to correct it if I had any idea what it means. 69.40.24.245 (talk) 17:35, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the story is quite specific about them returning to 2055. It is also oddly specific about travelling back 60002050 years. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:7C0C:8988:B863:F86D (talk) 15:13, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Influence section and attribution of the phrase Butterfly Effect
Changed in this section "Often misscredited  as source..." To "Often credited". This is actually the reason I am here, to check a book reference. To say is misscredited, needs proof, and no proof was presented.

A Sound of Thunder was a widely discussed story and the term "Butterfly effect" was used before Lorenz to mean that a small change can compound over time to a huge effect. The meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz used the phrase to explain part of Chaos theory - choosing to use space instead of time in his example.

Chaos Theory also proves that it is highly probable that minor perturbations (changes) cancel each other. The system returns to conditions near the pre-perturbation (pre-butterfly) state. However, there are critical points where a small perturbation causes a system to jump to a very different state.

The example is based on two stars with fixed positions in space and a planet circling one of the stars, the normal perturbations caused by other objects in space change the orbit slightly, but usually the changes cancel each other out over time and the planet's orbit is close to its original orbit. However, at the right location in the orbit, a small perturbation of the planet's orbit could cause the planet to jump to orbiting the other star. The stronger the perturbation, the more points (larger locus) at which the planet will jump.

There is a joke among Chaos theoreticians that if the planet jumps back and forth several times, the path of planet looks like a sketch of a butterfly. This is only funny because the "Butterfly effect" is so well known. This example is a very constrained (and physically impossible) situation. In a real physical situation, the two stars would be orbiting each other and the butterfly-like image would not appear. The behavior of the planet would be similar to the simplified example. Drbits (talk) 23:43, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Perhaps Lorenz had read the story and was (perhaps subconsciously) thinking of it when he picked a butterfly as example. Who knows? What I can tell you is that well into the 1970s the story was widely anthologised, reprinted in magazines, etc (In some translations of the title the sound of the thunderclap became the difference one butterfly makes). So it is altogether possible. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:7C0C:8988:B863:F86D (talk) 15:12, 13 December 2021 (UTC)