Why do small physical changes cascade into large effects?
Why do small physical changes cascade into large effects? The hidden rules that let tiny nudges trigger massive outcomes Big-picture framing We’re used to thinking in straight lines: small cause, small effect. But small physical changes often trigger surprisingly large consequences because many systems aren’t linear—they’re perched near thresholds, packed with feedback loops, and sensitive to timing. This piece unpacks why a tiny nudge can flip a system into a new state, how energy and stress quietly accumulate, and where amplification and damping hide in everyday structures, technologies, and natural environments. By the end, you’ll see not just why cascades happen, but also why they often don’t —and how that shapes risk in the real world. The myth of “proportional response”: why small ≠ small We instinctively expect the world to behave like a dimmer switch: move it a little, the light changes a little. That holds in linear systems , where output scales neatly w...