Talk:A Sound of Thunder

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[edit] Question of First Publish Date

The first publication date is now no longer under question.

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)

[edit] Anyone noticed?

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 compund over time. The two presidental canidates 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 bacteries 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)