Mathematics? It's all just life.

[Carbonated_Brains]

All the kinetic energy of that ball is released by a tiny push.

Potential Energy, but let's not split hairs.

That was a damn good explanation, and had my 10 pages of rebuttal not been deleted when the stupid message board asked me for my password upon clicking "submit", I would have probably said something along those lines, with much more dilly-dallying and diagrams.

The computer thing is interesting though, the computer really wont repeat the same experiment and get the exact same answer if it's a truly chaotic model, because the tiny rounding errors made by computer processors are enough to propogate into the results over time.

The same chaotic "prediction" made by two computers will be hugely different due to minute changes in the way the processors are made, and handle math.

But you're right, bottom line is the butterfly does not CAUSE the situation, it merely represents a difference in initial conditions.