Scaling arguments have led to a deep understanding of the dynamics of tipping points and phase transitions (how, for example, liquids freeze into solids or vaporize into gases), chaotic phenomena (the “butterfly effect” in which the mythical flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil leads to a hurricane in Florida), the discovery of quarks (the building blocks of matter), the unification of the fundamental forces of nature, and the evolution of the universe after the Big Bang.
