Modelling Chaos

If you are a teacher then please also visit my new site: intermathematics.com for over 2000+ pdf pages of resources for teaching IB maths!

Modelling Chaos

This post was inspired by Rachel Thomas’ Nrich article on the same topic.  I’ll carry on the investigation suggested in the article.  We’re going to explore chaotic behavior – where small changes to initial conditions lead to widely different outcomes.  Chaotic behavior is what makes modelling (say) weather patterns so complex.

Let’s start as in the article with the function:

f(x) = 4x(1-x)

We can then start an iterative process where we choose an initial value, calculate f(x) and then use this answer to calculate a new f(x) etc. For example when I choose x = 0.2, f(0.2) = 0.64. I then use this value to find a new value f(0.64) = 0.9216. I used a spreadsheet to plot 40 iterations for the starting values of x = 0.2 and x = 0.2001. This generated the following spreadsheet (cut to show the first 10 terms):

I then imported this table into Desmos to map how the change in the starting value from 0.2 to 0.2001 affected the resultant graph.

Starting value of x = 0.2

Starting value of x = 0.2001

Both graphs superimposed 

We can see that for the first 10 terms the graphs are virtually the same – but then we get a wild divergence, before the graphs seem to synchronize more closely again.  One thing we notice is that the data is bounded between 0 and 1.  Can we prove why this is?

If we start with a value of x such that:

0<x<1.

then when we plot f(x) = 4x – 4x² we can see that the graph has a maximum at x = 1/2:
.

Therefore any starting value of x between 0 and 1 will also return a new value bounded between 0 and 1.  Starting values of x > 1 and x < -1 will tend to negative infinity because x² grows much more rapidly than x.

f(x) = ax(1-x)

Let’s now explore what happens as we change the value of a whilst keeping our initial starting values of x = 0.2 and x = 0.2001

a = 0.8

both graphs are superimposed but are identical at the scale we are using.  We can see that both values are attracted to 0 (we can say that 0 is an attractor for our system).

a = 1.2

Again both graphs are superimposed but are identical at the scale we are using.  We can see that both values are attracted to 1/6 (we can say that 1/6 is an attractor for our system).

In general, for f(x) = ax(1-x) with -1≤x≤1, the attractors are given by x = 0 and x = 1 – 1/a, but it depends on the starting conditions as to whether we will end up being attracted to this point.

f(x) = 0.8x(1-x)

So, let’s look at f(x) = 0.8x(1-x) for different starting values 1≤x≤1.  Our attractors are given by x = 0 and x = 1 – 1/0.8 = -0.25.

When our initial value is x = 0 we remain at the point x = 0.

When our initial value is x = -0.25 we remain at the point x = -0.25.

When our initial value is x < -0.25 we tend to negative infinity.

When our initial value is  -0.25 < x ≤ 1 we tend towards x = 0.

Starting value of x = -0.249999:

Therefore we can say that x = 0 is a stable attractor, initial values close to x = 0 will still tend to 0.

However x = -0.25 is a fixed point rather than a stable attractor, as

x = -0.250001 will tend to infinity very rapidly,

x = -0.25 stays at x = -0.25.

x = -0.249999 will tend towards 0.

Therefore there is a stable equilibria at x = 0 and an unstable equilibria at x = -0.25.

Essential resources for IB students:

1) Revision Village

Revision Village has been put together to help IB students with topic revision both for during the course and for the end of Year 12 school exams and Year 13 final exams.  I would strongly recommend students use this as a resource during the course (not just for final revision in Y13!) There are specific resources for HL and SL students for both Analysis and Applications.

There is a comprehensive Questionbank takes you to a breakdown of each main subject area (e.g. Algebra, Calculus etc) and then provides a large bank of graded questions.  What I like about this is that you are given a difficulty rating, as well as a mark scheme and also a worked video tutorial.  Really useful!

The Practice Exams section takes you to a large number of ready made quizzes, exams and predicted papers.   These all have worked solutions and allow you to focus on specific topics or start general revision.  This also has some excellent challenging questions for those students aiming for 6s and 7s.

Essential Resources for IB Teachers

1) Intermathematics.com

If you are a teacher then please also visit my new site.  This has been designed specifically for teachers of mathematics at international schools.  The content now includes over 2000 pages of pdf content for the entire SL and HL Analysis syllabus and also the SL Applications syllabus.  Some of the content includes:

1. Original pdf worksheets (with full worked solutions) designed to cover all the syllabus topics.  These make great homework sheets or in class worksheets – and are each designed to last between 40 minutes and 1 hour.
2. Original Paper 3 investigations (with full worked solutions) to develop investigative techniques and support both the exploration and the Paper 3 examination.
3. Over 150 pages of Coursework Guides to introduce students to the essentials behind getting an excellent mark on their exploration coursework.
4. A large number of enrichment activities such as treasure hunts, quizzes, investigations, Desmos explorations, Python coding and more – to engage IB learners in the course.

There is also a lot more.  I think this could save teachers 200+ hours of preparation time in delivering an IB maths course – so it should be well worth exploring!

Essential Resources for both IB teachers and IB students

1) Exploration Guides and Paper 3 Resources

I’ve put together a 168 page Super Exploration Guide to talk students and teachers through all aspects of producing an excellent coursework submission.  Students always make the same mistakes when doing their coursework – get the inside track from an IB moderator!  I have also made Paper 3 packs for HL Analysis and also Applications students to help prepare for their Paper 3 exams.  The Exploration Guides can be downloaded here and the Paper 3 Questions can be downloaded here.