what is a strange attactor?and what has it to do with chaos?

Answer 1

Take a pendulum hanging from a hook, swing it. We all know it will sway from one side to another for a long period of time. What we do not know however is the exact path it will take... it is not predictible.

To see this effect, tape a bag of sand at the bottom of the pendulum. Put a small hole in the bottom of the bag so the sand slowly leaks out and can "draw" the path of the pendulum on the ground.

Look at it as it swings, see if you can figure out what the next path will be. You can't. But....

... wait five minutes and you will see a pattern appearing. It will look almost like a butterfly.

Erase the sand, and retry the experiment.

Hmm... the butterfly appears again. How can each swing be random, but a group of swings create a somewhat repeatable pattern?

Some "strange attractor" is making the pattern? Is it just gravity, pulling the pendulum through a single point at the bottom of the pendulum swing? Yes. But why is the path always different, yet the same?

Chaos.

Chaos is natural. It's why clouds don't look like bubbles. It is why trees aren't perfectly straight. It is why rocks are not perfectly flat. It is why we all have the same body parts, but are all unique and beautiful in our own perfectly imperfect way. We are different but we are the same.

All things are chaotic and yet have a strange commonality. A strange attraction the defines the essense of an object, but still allows it to be different.

That's a bit of a philosophical rather than mathmatical explaination, but it provides you with the basic idea.


Enjoy life.

Answer 2

An attractor is informally described as strange if it has non-integer dimension or if the dynamics on the attractor are chaotic. So that's what it has to do with chaos...like chaos, the attractor seems to have random dynamics, even though they are completely determined by the equations and have no randomness whatsoever.

Answer 3

No, superobotz, strangeness and charm are *both* quark characteristics. One is not the *opposite* of the other.

Since fractal functions are recursive (in the sense that they are repeated over and over infinitely many times) there are values (or, more often, cycles of values) that are approached as 'limits'. These 'limit cycles' form regions which are refered to as 'strange attractors' and are, themselves, chaotic in nature. That is, the value of a point over repeated application of the fractal transform can be predicted to be on a limit cycle, but not *exactly* where on the cycle.


Doug

Answer 4

Ialdabaoth,The Demiurgos Archon staggered, then bolstered and braced into the eternal dance of syzygies ... An eternal dove's(named Wah hu) breath fanning the chit .. tohu bohu ... at the back of his cerebellum...he scratched and sniffed .. something forgotten .. he gnu he nu ... Great arching horns curving thru all existence ... Ialdabaoth nu he gnu .. chit

In this myth the uah hu dove is the strange attractor ..

Answer 5

May I rest on the laurels you bequeathed me on a similar answer ? .. adding only , yes the point on the torus and where it may be where are pure probability math .. Doc Edmonds up there is thorough :D ..

Answer 6

Some sort of quark? I've heard of strange quarks... their opposite is charmed.