Tag Archives: chaos

A catalog of attractors, repellors, cycles, and other oscillations of some common functional iterates

One of the reasons we became interested in functional iterates was from seeking an analogy for the effect of selective pressure on the mean values of a measurable biological trait in a population. Let us consider a biological trait under … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Are civilizational cycles the norm?

Nearly two and half decades back, we used to have several conversations with a late śūlapuruṣīya professor, mostly on topics with a biological angle. While not a mathematician, he had a passing interest in dynamical systems, for he felt that … Continue reading

Posted in History, Life, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some notes on the Henon-Heiles Hamiltonian system

Anyone familiar with dynamical systems knows of the Henon-Heiles (HH) system. What we are presenting here is well-known stuff about which reams of material have been written. However, we offer certain tricks for visualizing this system that make it easy … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A simple second order differential equation, ovals and chaos

In our youth as a consequence of our undying fascination with ovals we explored many means of generating them. In course of those explorations we experimentally arrived at a simple second order differential equation that generated oval patterns. It also … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chaotic behavior of some floor-squared maps

Consider the one dimensional maps of the form: , where is the fractional part of What will be evolution of a under this map when or ? We can see that for it will tend converge. However, the behavior is … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chaos, eruptions and root-convergence in one-dimensional maps based on metallic-sequence generating functions

bronze_bouncer Over the years we have observed or encountered certain natural phenomena that are characterized by rare, sudden eruptive behavior occurring against a background of very low amplitude fluctuations. We first encountered this in astronomy: most remarkably, in the constellation … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Packing constants for polygonal fractal maps

Among the very first programs which we wrote in our childhood was one to generate the famous Sierpinski triangle as an attractor using the “Chaos Game” algorithm of Barnsley. A couple of years later we returned to it generalize it … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A novel discrete map exhibiting chaotic behavior

The map proposed by R. Lozi over 40 years ago is one of the simplest two dimensional maps that exhibits chaotic behavior and generates a wide range of interesting structures. The map may be defined thus: where are real parameters. … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The geometric principles behind discrete dynamical systems based on the generalized Witch of Agnesi

Consider the family of curves defined by the equation following parametric equation , where and It defines a family of probability distribution functions (PDFs): This can be seen from the above equations because Figure 1 Examples of these PDFs are … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The remarkable behavior of a map displaying derived from a simple model for a biological conflict

One of the simplest yet profound mathematical models for biological growth emerged sometime in the middle of the 1800s due to the work of Verhulst. It describes population growth thus: let be the population of the organism at time . … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pattern formation in coupled map lattices with the circle map, tanh map, and Chebyshev map

The coupled map lattices (CMLs), first defined by Kunihiko Kaneko around the same time Wolfram was beginning to explore cellular automata, combine features of cellular automata with chaotic maps. The simplest CMLs are defined on a one dimensional lattice with … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Satija-Ketoja system

Satija and Ketoja discovered an interesting dynamical system in course of the study of the Schrödinger equation for one electron in a two dimensional periodic lattice on a uniform magnetic field. While this equation and its variants have several uses … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some simple maps specifying strange attractors

This note may be read a continuation of: Some reminiscences of our study of chaotic maps-2 While the story of the chaotic 2D attractors began with the simple-looking maps of Henon and Lozi, by the early 1990s the high-point was … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cobwebs on the golden hyperbola and parabola

The material presented here is rather trivial to those who have spent even a small time looking at chaotic systems. Nevertheless, we found it instructive when we first discovered it for ourselves while studying conics. Hence, as part of recording … Continue reading

Posted in Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Deliberations on richness and beauty: discovery of some multi-parameter iterative maps

As we have explained in the earlier notes (1, 2, 3), the second major factor in our exploration of 2D strange attractors maps, IFS and other fractals was the aesthetic experience they produced. Around that time we came across a … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some reminiscences of our study of chaotic maps-2

Continued from part-1 The second two dimensional map we studied in our early days was that of Lozi: where and are constants. It becomes immediately evident that this map is conceptually similar to the Henon map, using the absolute value … Continue reading

Posted in art, Life, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some reminiscences of our study of chaotic maps-1

Starting in our teens, we began our exploration of chaotic (strange) attractors emerging from simple iterative maps, numerical solution of ordinary differential equations and other fractals inspired by the work of Benoit Mandelbrot. It led us in two directions. First, … Continue reading

Posted in art, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Some lessons we learned from 3-color totalistic cellular automata

Cellular automata (CA) have attracted people’s attention to different degrees over the past several decades since the early work of pioneers like Ulam and von Neumann. Remarkably von Neumann played with his earliest versions of CA using a graph paper … Continue reading

Posted in art, History, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chaos in the iterative Hindu square root method of the gaṇaka-rāja

For Hindus big numbers always mattered and our mathematics is quite reflection of this fascination. Since the earliest times, Hindus devised various methods to obtain square roots of numbers, especially approximations of irrational roots correct to multiple decimal places. The … Continue reading

Posted in Heathen thought, Scientific ramblings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Leaves from the scrapbook

There were extensive memoirs in the form of electronic scrapbooks of Somakhya, Lootika and some members of their circle. Those in the know read the available excerpts due to matters of considerable interest being recorded in them. Other parts were … Continue reading

Posted in art, Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment