"wayne461" <wde### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
Why is it called
> Peter De Jong 'attractors'?
Paul,
You can disregard that question about why called Peter De Jong "attractors."
I found your page http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/lyapunov/
where it seems to describe how these 'attractors' are found.
"If the Lyapunov exponent is less than zero then the system attracts to a
fixed point or stable periodic orbit. "

However, I am confused a bit later by the list of how the seried can behave,
particular the separation of two possibilities:
"It will form a periodic orbit, these are identified by their negative
Lyapunov exponent "
-and-
"It will exhibit chaos, filling in some region of the plane. These are the
solutions that "look good" and the ones we wish to identify with the
Lyapunov exponent. "

Aren't these the same things because it is "attractors" that you want to
find?  Won't the ones that look good have a negative Lyapunov expoenent?

Thanks,
Wayne

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