Kevin Wampler wrote:

> I think you may have some misconceptions about what chaos is.  First 
> off, sensitivity to initial conditions is a necessary but *not 
> sufficient* condition for chaotic behavior.

According to Wikipedia (which is never wrong), a chaotic system must 
possess three attributes:

1. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions.
2. Topologically mixing.
3. Its periodic orbits are dense.

I know the system has property #1. I believe it has property #2. I have 
no idea WTF #3 even *means*.

> Thirdly, although it's possible I'm wrong here, if you have *any* 
> dampening I don't think the system can be counted as chaotic because all 
> paths will eventually converge to a point.

According to Wikipedia, the important thing is that the orbits have 
"significantly different" behaviour. (And apparently what you define as 
"significant" can affect what counts as chaos.)

> Finally, I'm not sure that your system is chaotic.  For inverse-square 
> springs it's known as Euler's three-body problem and appears to have a 
> (rather complicated) analytic solution.

Well, maybe...

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