strange attractor
- noun
- /streɪndʒ əˈtræktər/
- Specialized
:
atractor extraño
- The mathematician explained how a strange attractor can lead to chaotic behavior in certain non-linear equations.
Examples
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One common feature of non-linear systems at the boundary of linearity and chaos is the strange attractor.
Blog text (30) -
Strange attractors are valleys in a landscape of possible states in a non-equilibrium system (where the vertical scale is inverse probability).
Blog text (30) -
And somewhere in there, the strange attractor.
Fiction book (1995) -
Diverging toward their own strange attractors.
Fiction book (1995) -
When we did, we'd have proof that any physical system showing an ultradependence on initial conditions must have a strange attractor buried somewhere in its structure.
Fiction book (1995) -
They're too important not to publish: proof that any physical system showing an ultradependence on initial conditions must have a strange attractor buried somewhere in its structure.
Fiction book (1995) -
But there was something odd about these particular diagrams: they were chaotic, as always around a strange attractor, but in nonpatterns I hadn't seen before.
Fiction book (1995) -
States which start out only infinitesimally separated go on to diverge more and more and more... and more, moving toward some hidden values called, aptly enough, strange attractors.
Fiction book (1995) -
In chaos theory, a strange attractor describes the unpredictable patterns that emerge in a dynamic system.
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Scientists study strange attractors to understand the complex behaviors of systems in chaos theory.
Synonyms
A complex pattern a system settles into that never repeats so small changes give very different results
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is partly compositional: a learner can infer from 'strange' + 'attractor' that it refers to an unusual or peculiar kind of attractor. However, the full technical sense (a complex, chaotic pattern toward which trajectories converge) is specialized and not predictable from the everyday meanings of the parts, so understanding requires domain knowledge or prior exposure.
Etymology
The term strange attractor comes from imagining an invisible magnet that pulls a moving thing into a weird, twisty shape. The word attractor shows the 'pull' toward that shape and strange points to the 'chaotic' way the path looks, so it now means a pattern a system tends to move toward even when the movement is unpredictable.
