---
slug: oip-node-c23-attractors-dynamical-systems
title: Node C23: Attractors / Dynamical Systems
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-node-c23-attractors-dynamical-systems
---

# Node C23: Attractors / Dynamical Systems

C23 — Attractors / Dynamical Systems
{
  "id": "C23",
  "claim": "Dynamical systems evolve toward characteristic limiting sets (attractors) in phase space; deterministic systems can be unpredictable (chaos), and different initial conditions can converge to the same attractor.",
  "domain": ["celestial mechanics", "meteorology", "cardiology", "ecology", "economics"],
  "pattern": ["attractor", "strange_attractor", "chaos", "deterministic_unpredictability", "basin_of_attraction"],
  "mechanism": "An attractor is a closed subset of phase space toward which nearby trajectories converge. Fixed points: stable equilibria. Limit cycles: periodic oscillation. Strange attractors (Lorenz, Rossler): fractal sets with sensitive dependence on initial conditions (Lyapunov exponent > 0). Feigenbaum: period-doubling route to chaos has universal ratio δ = 4.669... independent of system details.",
  "scale": "all scales",
  "claim_tier": "T0/T1",
  "sources": [
    "Poincare, H. (1890). 'Sur le probleme des trois corps et les equations de la dynamique.' Acta Math., 13, 1-270.",
    "Lorenz, E.N. (1963). 'Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow.' J. Atmos. Sci., 20(2), 130-141.",
    "Feigenbaum, M.J. (1978). 'Quantitative Universality for a Class of Nonlinear Transformations.' J. Stat. Phys., 19, 25-52.",
    "Thom, R. (1972). Stabilite structurelle et morphogenese. Benjamin. [Catastrophe theory.]"
  ],
  "dual": "Fixed-point stability only — a system with no complex attractors, converging only to simple equilibria.",
  "falsifier": "N/A for the mathematical theorems. For the mapping to physical reality: a dynamical system whose long-term behavior does not settle into any identifiable attractor structure — pure transience with no recurrence statistics.",
  "rival_frame": "Attractors are features of mathematical models, not of reality. The model converges; the system does not know it has an attractor. 'Strange attractors' are visualization artifacts of low-dimensional projections. Feigenbaum's universality applies only to unimodal maps — a narrow class of systems.",
  "independence_check": "HIGH. Poincare (celestial mechanics, Paris, 1890) discovered chaos studying the three-body problem. Lorenz (meteorology, MIT, 1963) found strange attractors in atmospheric convection. Feigenbaum (mathematics, Los Alamos, 1978) discovered universality in iterative maps. Thom (topology, Bures-sur-Yvette, 1972) developed catastrophe theory from structural stability. Four fields, four countries, eight decades, same pattern: systems have characteristic long-term behaviors.",
  "pattern_type": "mathematical",
  "maps_to_axiom": ["A7"]
}

---

## Corpus map
- Same node, other planes: [Encyclopedia C23](/a/convergence-encyclopedia-c23) · [Inventory invariant](/a/oip-invariant-17-317-attractors-dynamical-systems-chaos)
- Edges touching C23: [convergence edge 10](/a/oip-convergence-edge-10)
- Catalogue hub: [Public Article](/a/oip-convergence-public-article) · [Schema](/a/oip-convergence-schema)
