attractor
3
9.9
- noun
- /əˈtræktər/
- Specialized
:
atractor
- This shape that the curve approaches is called the attractor because it's like the curve is attracted to it.
Because these fractal attractors are really about properties of the system as a whole.
- Because these fractal attractors are really about properties of the system as a whole.
- And who knows how all of that shakes out after civilizations reflect on that and converge and different attractors and so on and so forth.
Examples
-
Most systems usually contain more than one attractor, which means that the system in question has a "choice" between several destinies.
Academic text (2005) -
So the system begins to wander along a different attractor than the one it was wandering before the change.
Blog text (34) -
All points on the attractor are equally special and important.
-
What do we know about the great attractor and what are your thoughts on what it is or could be?
-
We have a strange attractor, and that was the terminology that came into the field.
-
These half planes here, this region here is called the attractor basin for this attractor.
-
Because these fractal attractors are really about properties of the system as a whole.
-
Far more startling, though, was the discovery that an attractor can spontaneously mutate into a different attractor.
Academic text (2005) -
Thus, in a nonlinear economy, any system's future or destiny depends on long-term tendencies to drift toward certain attractors.
Academic text (2005) -
The behavior of particles in a chaotic system is often described by an attractor, which indicates where they will eventually settle.
Synonyms
A state a physical system moves toward over time no matter how it starts
A complex pattern a system settles into that never repeats so small changes give very different results
A complex pattern that a changing system moves toward while behaving unpredictably
Compounds
- Specialized
1
9.9
A very large group of galaxies that pulls other galaxies with strong gravity
- Specialized
A complex pattern a system settles into that never repeats so small changes give very different results
- Specialized
A complex pattern that a changing system moves toward while behaving unpredictably
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Attractor comes from the verb attract, which has the root tract meaning 'to pull', just like in tractor. In physics, an attractor is a group of states that 'pull' a system toward them, so the system tends to move to that pattern no matter where it started.