A Sound of Thunder - wikipedia A Sound of Thunder This article is about the short story by Ray Bradbury. For other uses, see Sound of Thunder ( disambiguation ). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( October 2013 ) `` A Sound of Thunder '' Author Ray Bradbury Country United States Language English Genre ( s ) Science fiction short story `` A Sound of Thunder '' is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier 's magazine in the June 28, 1952, issue and Bradbury 's collection The Golden Apples of the Sun in 1953. Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Adaptations 3 Influence 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links Plot summary In the year 2055, time travel has become a practical reality, and the company Time Safari Inc. offers wealthy adventurers the chance to travel back in time to hunt extinct species such as dinosaurs. A hunter named Eckels pays $10,000 to join a hunting party that will travel back 66 million years to the Late Cretaceous period, on a guided safari to kill a Tyrannosaurus rex. As the party waits to depart, they discuss the recent presidential elections in which an apparently fascist candidate, Deutscher, has been defeated by the more moderate Keith, to the relief of many concerned. When the party arrives in the past, Travis ( the hunting guide ) and Lesperance ( Travis 's assistant ) warn Eckels and the two other hunters, Billings and Kramer, about the necessity of minimizing the events they change before they go back, since tiny alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in history. Travis explains that the hunters are obliged to stay on a levitating path to avoid disrupting the environment, that any deviation will be punished with hefty fines, and that prior to the hunt, Time Safari scouts had been sent back to select and tag their prey, which would have died within minutes anyway, and whose death has been calculated to have minimal effect on the future. Although Eckels is initially excited about the hunt, when the monstrous Tyrannosaurus approaches, he loses his nerve. Travis tells him he can not leave, but Eckels panics, steps off the path and stumbles into the forest. Eckels hears shots, and on his return, he sees that the two guides have killed the dinosaur, and shortly afterward the falling tree that would have killed the T. rex has landed on top of it. Realizing that Eckels has fallen off the path, Travis threatens to leave him in the past unless he removes the bullets from the dinosaur 's body, as they can not be left behind. Eckels obeys, but Travis remains furious, threatening on the return trip to shoot him. Upon returning to 2055, Eckels notices subtle changes -- English words are now spelled and spoken strangely, people behave differently, and Eckels discovers that Deutscher has won the election instead of Keith. Looking at the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed butterfly, whose death has apparently set in motion a series of subtle changes that have affected the nature of the alternative present to which the safari has returned. He frantically pleads with Travis to take him back into the past to undo the damage, but Travis had previously explained that the time machine can not return to any point in time that it has already visited ( so as to prevent any paradoxes ). Travis raises his gun, and there is `` a sound of thunder ''. Adaptations The story was aired on The Ray Bradbury Theater on October 8, 1989. A film adaptation starring Ben Kingsley, Edward Burns and Catherine McCormack was released in 2005. Roger Ebert stated that while he `` can not endorse it, ( he ) can appreciate it '' as a film that is bad because it `` want ( s ) so much to be terrific that ( it ) explode ( s ) under the strain. '' A Game Boy Advance video game based on the film was also released. It was finished in time for the film 's planned 2003 release, delayed along with it and ultimately released in February 2005. Planned console ports were cancelled. The story was parodied in the Time and Punishment section of The Simpsons episode `` Treehouse of Horror V ''. Influence `` A Sound of Thunder '' is often miscredited as the origin of the term `` butterfly effect '', a concept of chaos theory in which the flapping of a butterfly 's wings in one part of the world could create a hurricane on the opposite side of the globe. The term was actually introduced by meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz in the 1960s. However, Bradbury 's concept of how the death of a butterfly in the past could have drastic changes in the future is a representation of the butterfly effect, and used as an example of how to consider chaos theory and the physics of time travel. References Jump up ^ Birx, H. James ( 2009 - 01 - 13 ). Encyclopedia of Time : Science, Philosophy, Theology, & Culture. Sage Publications. pp. 109 --. ISBN 9781412941648. Retrieved 22 November 2015. Jump up ^ `` The Ray Bradbury Theater - Season 4, Episode 6 : A Sound of Thunder ''. TV.com. 2007 - 05 - 22. Retrieved 2013 - 10 - 05. ^ Jump up to : Ebert, Roger ( 2013 - 02 - 05 ). Roger Ebert 's Movie Yearbook 2007. Andrews McMeel Publishing. pp. 648 --. ISBN 9780740792199. Retrieved 22 November 2015. Jump up ^ `` A Sound of Thunder - IGN ''. Ca.ign.com. Retrieved 2013 - 10 - 05. Jump up ^ Rogers, Brett M. ; Stevens, Benjamin Eldon ( 2015 - 02 - 09 ). Classical Traditions in Science Fiction. Oxford University Press. pp. 322 --. ISBN 9780190228330. Retrieved 22 November 2015. Jump up ^ Flam, Faye ( 2012 - 06 - 15 ). `` The Physics of Ray Bradbury 's `` A Sound of Thunder '' ``. The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 2015 - 09 - 02. Further reading Listen to this article ( info / dl ) This audio file was created from a revision of the article `` A Sound of Thunder '' dated 2012 - 06 - 07, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ( Audio help ) More spoken articles Patai, Daphne ( 2013 ). `` Ray Bradbury And The Assault On Free Thought ''. Society. 50 ( 1 ) : 41 -- 47. doi : 10.1007 / s12115 - 012 - 9617 - x. Paradowski, Robert J. `` Ray Bradbury. '' Critical Survey Of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition ( 2010 ) : 1 - 9. Literary Reference Center. Weller, Sam. The Bradbury Chronicles : The Life of Ray Bradbury. New York : William Morrow, 2005. Holmes, Neil. `` Fateful butterfly. '' New Scientist 182.2443 ( 2004 ) : 31. Academic OneFile. External links A Sound of Thunder title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database Ray Bradbury Bibliography Novels The Martian Chronicles ( 1950 ) Fahrenheit 451 ( 1953 ) Dandelion Wine ( 1957 ) Something Wicked This Way Comes ( 1962 ) The Halloween Tree ( 1972 ) Death Is a Lonely Business ( 1985 ) A Graveyard for Lunatics ( 1990 ) Green Shadows, White Whale ( 1992 ) From the Dust Returned ( 2001 ) Let 's All Kill Constance ( 2002 ) Farewell Summer ( 2006 ) Short stories `` The Scythe '' ( 1943 ) `` The Lake '' ( 1944 ) `` Frost and Fire '' ( 1946 ) `` The Million Year Picnic '' ( 1946 ) `` The Small Assassin '' ( 1946 ) `` I See You Never '' ( 1947 ) `` Fever Dream '' ( 1948 ) `` The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl '' ( 1948 ) `` The Long Years '' ( 1948 ) `` Mars Is Heaven ! '' ( 1948 ) `` Dark They Were, and Golden - Eyed '' ( 1949 ) `` The Exiles '' ( 1949 ) `` Marionettes, Inc. '' ( 1949 ) `` The Long Rain '' ( 1950 ) `` The Rocket '' ( 1950 ) `` There Will Come Soft Rains '' ( 1950 ) `` The Veldt '' ( 1950 ) `` Ylla '' ( 1950 ) `` Embroidery '' ( 1951 ) `` The Fog Horn '' ( 1951 ) `` Here There Be Tygers '' ( 1951 ) `` The Pedestrian '' ( 1951 ) `` The April Witch '' ( 1952 ) `` A Sound of Thunder '' ( 1952 ) `` The Wilderness '' ( 1952 ) `` The Flying Machine '' ( 1953 ) `` The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind '' ( 1953 ) `` The Meadow '' ( 1953 ) `` The Murderer '' ( 1953 ) `` Sun and Shadow '' ( 1953 ) `` All Summer in a Day '' ( 1954 ) `` The Dragon '' ( 1955 ) `` The Aqueduct '' ( 1979 ) `` Banshee '' ( 1984 ) `` The Toynbee Convector '' ( 1984 ) `` Is That You, Herb ? '' ( 2003 ) Collections Dark Carnival ( 1947 ) The Illustrated Man ( 1951 ) The Golden Apples of the Sun ( 1953 ) The October Country ( 1955 ) A Medicine for Melancholy ( 1959 ) The Day It Rained Forever ( 1959 ) The Small Assassin ( 1962 ) R Is for Rocket ( 1962 ) The Machineries of Joy ( 1964 ) The Autumn People ( 1965 ) The Vintage Bradbury ( 1965 ) Tomorrow Midnight ( 1966 ) S Is for Space ( 1966 ) Twice 22 ( 1966 ) I Sing the Body Electric ( 1969 ) Ray Bradbury ( 1975 ) Long After Midnight ( 1976 ) The Fog Horn & Other Stories ( 1979 ) The Last Circus and the Electrocution ( 1980 ) The Stories of Ray Bradbury ( 1980 ) The Fog Horn and Other Stories ( 1980 ) Dinosaur Tales ( 1983 ) A Memory of Murder ( 1984 ) The Toynbee Convector ( 1988 ) Classic Stories 1 ( 1990 ) Classic Stories 2 ( 1990 ) The Parrot Who Met Papa ( 1991 ) Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden - Eyed ( 1991 ) Quicker Than the Eye ( 1996 ) Driving Blind ( 1997 ) Ray Bradbury Collected Short Stories ( 2001 ) One More for the Road ( 2002 ) Bradbury Stories : 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales ( 2003 ) The Cat 's Pajamas : Stories ( 2004 ) A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories ( 2005 ) The Dragon Who Ate His Tail ( 2007 ) Summer Morning, Summer Night ( 2007 ) A Pleasure to Burn ( 2010 ) The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury ( 2011, 2014 ) Plays The Meadow ( 1947 ) The Flying Machine : A One - Act Play for Three Men ( 1953 ) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays ( 1972 ) Pillar of Fire and Other Plays ( 1975 ) The Martian Chronicles ( 1986 ) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit ( 1986 ) Fahrenheit 451 ( 1986 ) Dandelion Wine ( 1988 ) The Veldt ( 1988 ) Adaptations It Came from Outer Space ( 1953 ) Moby Dick ( 1956 screenplay ) `` I Sing the Body Electric '' ( 1962 ) The Picasso Summer ( 1969 ) The Illustrated Man ( 1969 ) The Martian Chronicles ( 1980 miniseries ) The Electric Grandmother ( 1982 ) Something Wicked This Way Comes ( 1983 ) Bradbury 13 ( radio series, 1983 - 84 ) The Ray Bradbury Theater ( TV series, 1985 - 86, 1988 - 92 ) The Halloween Tree ( 1993 ) Dandelion Wine ( 1997 ) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit ( 1998 ) A Sound of Thunder ( 2005 ) Ray Bradbury 's Chrysalis ( 2008 ) The Whispers ( 2015 ) Miscellaneous Futuria Fantasia ( 1939 - 1940 ) The Mummies of Guanajuato ( 1978 ) Zen in the Art of Writing ( 1990 ) It Came from Outer Space ( 2003 book ) Related Spaceship Earth Bradbury Landing Ray Bradbury Award Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury VIAF : 179390455 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A_Sound_of_Thunder&oldid=815157856 '' Categories : 1952 short stories Time travel in short fiction Science fiction short stories Short stories by Ray Bradbury Works originally published in Collier 's Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from October 2013 All articles needing additional references Spoken articles Articles with hAudio microformats Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Deutsch Español فارسی Français Հայերեն Italiano Latviešu Nederlands Português Русский Suomi Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 13 December 2017, at 03 : 21. 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Question: when does a sound of thunder take place
Answer: year 2055