Chaos and Variable Stars: Good News and Bad
Volume 17 number 2 (1988)
- Charles A. Whitney
Abstract
A computer program is used to illustrate several qualitative features of chaotic behavior in a non-linear third-order system: a) The properties of the system depend strongly on the values assigned to the adjustable parameters; b) In the chaotic domain, the trajectory of the system is very sensitive to the starting point, which is the bad news, as it means long-range prediction is impossible; c) Simple systems can display very complex behavior, which is the good news, as it implies that irregular variables may be explainable by simple physics.