Butterfly Effect

I think butterflies could be minor in one place but major in one place

I think it is possible for Europe to go similar as OTL until they encountered a different South East Asia if South East Asian politics has changed before year 1500 but there will be minor butterflies for europe.
 
As a rule I'd apply this rule only one generation from the POD, and then from that point on the ATL people become more different. So a 1500 POD won't result in Napoleon wreaking havoc on Europe 300 years later.

Something like this (my assumption):

Let's say that Fred is 99% like OTL Fred. And his son is 98% like Fredson OTL (99% of 0.99 instead of 1.00).

Fredgrandson is 97% like OTL. And his son is 96% like OTL. And so on.

After a while it gets more complicated, but that alone should add up.
 
I always find this argument spurious (no offence)

Take a historical individual, and now take this proposed "Other" born a few days later of a different sperm and egg.

He will be given the SAME NAME as the historical individual, he will have the same genetic background, he will be raised in exactly the same way, go to the same school, have the same people around him in his early life and so on

Barring genetic disasters, such as being born disabled or with Downs, this "Other" will be to all intents and purposes the same person as the OTL figure. Perhaps he will look slightly different, perhaps he will have a slightly different temperament, but for anything that counts in an ATL he is going to be a genuine Ersatz Historical Individual

Even though this person has the same name (IF this person is of the same gender), it will be a genetic completely different person with as much in common with the other as brother/sister. This person most likely has a different character (just look how big differences between siblings can be).


As for the general spread of influence of a pod i think it is all down to the speed of communication, the faster communication is, the more potential to spread over a larger geographic area. However not all pod's spread equally, some spread exponentially, some just fizzle out.

some of you wrote that the effects of commoners is far less than that of 'important' persons, but have to disagree with that, it all comes down to being in the right(or wrong) place at the right time. A commoner doing something insignificant different, may cause someone else do things slightly different and before you know it the whole timing of what lots of people are doing is off.At the start this may not contribute to much, but pretty soon it will have effects, the effects may not be big, but due to the fact that it is a chaotic system, effects sooner or later get bigger and bigger.

It is a bit like the chaotic interaction in the solarsystem which makes longtime prediction/calculation impossible (limit there is 60M year)
 
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