---
slug: convergence-encyclopedia-c23
title: Convergence Encyclopedia: C23 — Attractors / Dynamical Systems
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/convergence-encyclopedia-c23
---

**F1 — Tier.** T0 (mathematical — Poincaré-Bendixson theorem, existence of attractors in ODEs is proven) / T1 (empirical — attractors observed in physical, biological, and social systems).

**F2 — Sources.** 
- Poincaré, H. (1890). “Sur le probleme des trois corps et les equations de la dynamique.” Acta Mathematica, 13, 1–270.
- Lorenz, E.N. (1963). “Deterministic nonperiodic flow.” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 20(2), 130–141.
- Feigenbaum, M.J. (1978). “Quantitative universality for a class of nonlinear transformations.” Journal of Statistical Physics, 19(1), 25–52.
- Thom, R. (1972). Stabilite structurelle et morphogenese. W.A. Benjamin. (Structural stability and catastrophe theory.)
- Ruelle, D. & Takens, F. (1971). “On the nature of turbulence.” Communications in Mathematical Physics, 20(3), 167–192.

**F3 — Domains.** Meteorology (Lorenz attractor, climate cycles), physiology (heart rhythms, neural dynamics), physics (turbulence, coupled oscillators), ecology (population cycles), economics (business cycles — contested).

**F4 — Scale.** Molecular reaction (~10⁻⁹ m) → climate system (~10⁷ m); neural circuit (~10⁻³ m) → ecosystem (~10⁶ m).

**F5 — Falsifier.** n/a (mathematical — attractors are proven features of certain classes of dynamical systems). Empirical falsifier: a natural system described by nonlinear ODEs that displays no attractor structure — no fixed points, no limit cycles, no strange attractors — under sustained observation.

**F6 — Rival (strongest form).** Attractors are features of models, not reality. The phase space in which attractors live is a mathematical construction; we never observe the full phase space, only projections. Apparent attractor structure in data may be an artifact of dimensionality reduction, noise filtering, or finite sampling. The attractor concept is a useful modeling tool, not a discovery about nature. (Sugihara & May 1990 Nature 344:734 on detecting chaos in time series; criticism by Osborne & Provenzale 1989 Physica D 35:357 on finite correlation dimension in stochastic systems.)

**F7 — Independence.** HIGH. Poincaré (mathematics, Paris, 1890s), Lorenz (meteorology, MIT, 1963), Feigenbaum (physics, Los Alamos, 1978), Thom (mathematics, IHES, 1972) — four independent programs. Poincaré founded the field; Lorenz discovered chaos computationally; Feigenbaum found universality in period-doubling; Thom developed catastrophe theory. The convergence was recognized retrospectively.

**F8 — Pattern type.** Mathematical.

**F9 — Maps.** A7 (pattern geometry).

---

## Corpus map
- Previous: [Convergence Encyclopedia: C22](/a/convergence-encyclopedia-c22)
- Next: [Convergence Encyclopedia: C24](/a/convergence-encyclopedia-c24)
- Encyclopedia start: [The Schema](/a/convergence-encyclopedia-schema)
- Same node, other planes: [Catalogue node C23](/a/oip-node-c23-attractors-dynamical-systems) · [Catalogue hub](/a/oip-convergence-public-article)
- Edges touching C23: [convergence edge 10](/a/oip-convergence-edge-10)
- Kin corpora: [Total Structure](/a/oip-total-structure) · [Signature of the Grain](/a/oip-sog-preamble-axioms)
