Talk:Attractor

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Archive 1

No Context

This article gives no context whatsoever. It would definitely be confusing to people who don't know what it's about. Can someone slap one of those "confusing" tags on it? --WikiDonn (talk) 06:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The context is dynamical systems which is linked in the first sentence. Since attractors only make sense as a property of a dynamical system it's natural to assume the reader has some knowledge of them since it would be impractical to explain every concept from scratch.--RDBury (talk) 17:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes... absolutely. This is one of those articles which makes perfect sense if you know all about the topic already, but is otherwise meaningless gobbledegook. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.58.212 (talk) 21:04, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Strange Attractors

Strange attractors are described in several ways in the article:

• "a complicated set with a fractal structure known as a strange attractor."
• "when these sets...cannot be easily described as simple combinations...then the attractor is called a strange attractor."
• "An attractor is called strange if it has non-integer dimension."

This last seems incorrect. Consider an initial variable point P in three-space, along with tetrahedron ABCD. If P is repeatedly moved half-way toward a randomly-chosen vertex (one of A, B, C, and D) the attractor is a Sierpinski tetrahedron, which has a dimension of 2 even though it is indeed a fractal. Consider replacing this sentence with the first description? "An attractor is called strange if it has a fractal structure." By linking "fractal" to the fractal article, the reader would be referred to a more accurate description: "A fractal is a mathematical set that has a fractal dimension that usually exceeds its topological dimension[1] and may fall between the integers.[2]" (This is my first edit, so I've posted my reasoning here before actually editing the article.] Scottsteketee (talk) 02:10, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

x1 not a limit set

Maybe explain why x1 is not a limit set, (pendulum example), even though x0 is. Thanks, 71.139.161.36 (talk) 03:59, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

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"Hidden attractors" section not adequately sourced and raises COA issues

The section Numerical localization (visualization) of attractors: self-excited and hidden attractors is only supported by WP:primary sources; 3 recent research papers by the same three authors: Kuznetsov, Leonov and Vagaitsev. Wikipedia requires primary sources to be backed up by secondary sources; survey articles or textbooks on the subject (WP:PSTS). Are there any? WP is not the place to present research that has yet to be accepted.

Secondly, the fact that this section was added by Kuznetsov N.V., the author of the only papers on the subject, raises WP:conflict of interest issues. @Kuznetsov N.V.: I respect your academic credentials and I'm sure your motives are pure. However, you can see that the lack of any other sources besides your own papers could give the appearance that "hidden oscillation" is a concept you are pushing to advance your own academic career. Adding sources by other authors would resolve any doubts about this. --Chetvorno^TALK 18:31, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@Chetvorno that makes perfect sense. I'm commenting that section out. I have also added the {{Notability}} template on hidden attractor since it suffers from the same problem; once this template is solved, the section will be placed back in this present article.

Visualization of economic processes by attractors

Some economic processes can be described by ODE systems (or by discrete dynamic systems) of the type

x' = f_x(x, y, z)

y' = f_y(x, y, z)

z' = f_z(x, y, z)

Thus, such processes can be represented by attractors. In the Microsoft Store App "VisualEconomics" (https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9PP8H144BKMK) 6 examples are implemented which refer to 5 publications. The systems contain parameters that represent the process state and can be changed, with the shape of the attractor also changing. Help functions make it easier to understand, and the associated publication can also be read in parallel.

'Cellular Automata' section not adequately sourced

The section on cellular automata is only supported by WP:primary sources, namely Stephen Wolfram's writing on his own work. Unlike the rest of the article, which describes work that is not only in original papers but also in texts, and is generally accepted by the mathematical community, this section is supported only by books by the proponent of this theory, and published only in unrefereed sources. In addition, unlike the rest of the article, which describes proven results, the Wolfram results in this section are only unsupported conjectures by Wolfram. I will edit to indicate that the results of this section are conjectures by Wolfram, not accepted fact, but I think this section should be deleted entirely, and will do that in a week if there isn't a differing opinion posted here. Andylatto (talk) 15:50, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Changed first image

I have just replaced the first image (of the Poisson Saturne attractor) by another image of the same attractor. I know that the previous image has been widely liked and shared, but I believe it is time for a change for the following reasons:

• The only resolution of the previous image is 480x640 pixels, which limits its use severely. The new image is in Commons with a resolution of 12800x9600 pixels.

• The new image has been run with many more iterations (10^11), so has much more detail.

• The coloring is designed to emphasize the fact that the attractor is not connected but has two separate components. This is of course not visible in the still image, but it is in the accompanying video to which we also link.

Bvsydow (talk) 17:08, 22 April 2021 (UTC)