Modelling Chaos

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.

IB Revision

If you’re already thinking about your coursework then it’s probably also time to start planning some revision, either for the end of Year 12 school exams or Year 13 final exams. There’s a really great website that I would strongly recommend students use – you choose your subject (HL/SL/Studies if your exam is in 2020 or Applications/Analysis if your exam is in 2021), and then have the following resources:

The Questionbank takes you to a breakdown of each main subject area (e.g. Algebra, Calculus etc) and each area then has a number 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 ready made exams on each topic – again with worked solutions.  This also has some harder exams for those students aiming for 6s and 7s and the Past IB Exams section takes you to full video worked solutions to every question on every past paper – and you can also get a prediction exam for the upcoming year.

I would really recommend everyone making use of this – there is a mixture of a lot of free content as well as premium content so have a look and see what you think.