CHAOS AND ITS

APPLICATION
A REVIEW
BY
ABIOLA JOHN
G202110170
PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
KING FAHD UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM AND MINERALS
SAUDI ARABIA

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

• Chaos is often times referred to as the science of surprises, of the

nonlinear and unpredictable by many judging from the fact that it
teaches us to expect the unexpected.
• The physics of chaos is mostly studied by fractal mathematics, which
captures the infinite complexity of nature
• We have observed that many natural objects exhibit fractal properties
including most of the systems in which we live
• This therefore underscores the importance of our understanding of
the nature of chaos.

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1.1 DYNAMICAL SYSTEM
• This is a system that involves one or more variables
that change over time according to autonomous
differential equations
• For every system that is chaotic, it can be described
by a differential equation which can be represented
in phase space. Each point on the phase space has its
rate of change which can be shown as a vector.
• Classical mechanics sufficiently describes the motion
of a dynamical system as motion on an attractor and
hence three basic types of attractors are recognized
which are: single points (which describes steady
state motion), closed loops (describing periodic
motions) and tori (which characterizes combinations
of several circles)
• However a new kind of attractor was discovered in
the 1960s which exhibited chaotic behavior. These
were referred to as strange attractors [3].
1.2 ATTRACTORS
An attractor is a set of points in the phase space
which attracts all the trajectories in an area
surrounding it, known as the basin of attraction
1.3 LORENZ ATTRACTOR
• A solution to the Lorenz attractor when , with
the set of Lorenz equation [1,2].
• (i)
• (ii)
• (iii)
Yields the strange attractor
The constants are system parameters proportional
to the Prandtl number, Rayleigh number, and
certain physical dimensions of the layer itself [5].
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2.0 RESULTS 20

10

The strange attractor was simulated using 10

Mathematic code for various parameters of
to obtain the behavior of the Lorenz attractor 20

[4]
. The results are presented below 40

Lorenz attractor for

30

20

10

10

10

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2.0 RESULTS CONT’D

• Lorenz attractor for 6.0

5.6
5.8
6.0
6.2

5.5

13.5

13.0

12.5

5
2.0 RESULTS CONT’D
• Lorenz attractor for 5.8
5.4
5.6
5.8

5.6

5.4

12.4

12.2

12.0

11.8

11.6

6
2.0 RESULTS CONT’D
• Lorenz attractor for 6.5
7.0 5.5
6.0
6.5
6.0

5.5

15

14

13

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3.0 Discussion

• In the Lorenz system simulation we have chosen the simulation to range between 1s to 3s,
after a time of 10s, any error would have multiplied by more than 8000 and this gives an
idea of how hard it is to make an accurate prediction over long periods of time with this
exponential divergence.
• If we assume we have a simulation that predicts where ocean currents flow and we want
to keep the error to less than 1000m and then run the simulation with an error of 1m and
repeat same with . The predictability horizon for each simulation as a ratio becomes

• With an accuracy of a million times, our simulation would be valid for barely 9days instead
of 3days. This is the type of difficulty that any chaotic system presents in its simulation.
The solar system’s predictability horizon is not more than a few million years under
current technology which is not even a tenth of the time period between humans and
dinosaurs. The earth’s weather and atmosphere are incredibly hard to predict accurately
for more than a week.
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4.0 CONCLUSION
Chaos is extremely difficult to predict and as such the science of chaos
is highly characterized with approximations and probabilistic guess. In
the near future however, we expect the understanding in this field to
increase drastically which will in turn enhance our ability to predict
natural phenomena. Personally it is however interesting to know that
we may never be able to predict the future accurately because that in
its self will be a motivation for us to continue to seek to know more. In
the word of master OOgway “yesterday is history, tomorrow is a
mystery, but today is a gift, that is why it is called the ‘PRESENT’”.

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REFERENCES

[1]. E.N. Lorenz. Deterministic nonperiodic flow J Atmos Sci, 20 (2) (1963),
pp. 130-141

[2]. C. Sparrow. The Lorenz equations: bifurcations, chaos, and strange attractors
Applied Mathematical Sciences, Springer, New York (1982)

[3]. Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2021, April 25). chaos

theory. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/chaos-theory.
[4].
[5]. Sparrow, Colin (1982). The Lorenz Equations: Bifurcations, Chaos, and Strange
Attractors. Springer.
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APPENDIX
Simulation codes for Lorenz attractor where
• tend=20;
• eq={x'[t]==σ (y[t]-x[t]),y'[t]==x[t] (ρ-z[t])-y[t],z'[t]==x[t] y[t]-β z[t]};
• init={x[0]==5y[0]==5,z[0]==5};
• pars={σ->10,ρ->28,β->8/3};
• {xs,ys,zs}=NDSolveValue[{eq/.pars,init},{x,y,z},{t,1,tend}];
• ParametricPlot3D[{xs[t],ys[t],zs[t]},{t,2,tend}]

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