Sprott - strange attractor poster

SERIES A // Attractors

Sprott

€39

A jellyfish shape with a wave through its middle, from a catalogue of the simplest chaotic systems.

Colour
Format
Size

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About the piece

Chaos has a shape. Each picture is the path of a single point through space, computed hundreds of thousands of times by the same equations. What is a strange attractor?

Drawn in code from seed
00004
Series
Attractors
Variant
System
Palette
Violet
Sizing

30 × 40 cm (12 × 16 in) or 45 × 60 cm (18 × 24 in), with a white border around the picture. Framed prints come in a black or natural wood frame (12 mm wide) with plexiglass, ready to hang.

Print & materials

Fine art matte paper (200 gsm) at 300 DPI, made to order. Every size is rendered natively - lines stay razor-sharp even at the largest size.

Shipping & payment

Free shipping worldwide. Every print is made to order within a few business days and shipped worldwide, packed to arrive flawless. You see the delivery estimate for your country when you order.

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Fine art paper

200 gsm enhanced matte

Printed on thick uncoated art paper at 300 DPI. Rich colour, razor-sharp lines, no glare.

Real wood frames

Black or natural wood

Wooden frame, 22 mm deep, with plexiglass that is lighter and safer than glass. Arrives ready to hang.

Made to order

Free shipping worldwide

Each print is made for you when you order and packed to arrive flawless, wherever you are.

The story

In 1994 physicist Julien Sprott had a computer search millions of equations and found nineteen of the simplest chaotic systems, labelled A to S. Each has only five or six terms. The shape recalls a jellyfish: a bell with a wave through the middle.

MATHEMATICS

The maths behind the picture

Every piece is computed, not drawn. These are the real equations and numbers from the program that made this exact piece.

Read the guide: What is a strange attractor? →
Equations
x' = y + 2,07xy + xzy' = 1 − 1,79x² + yzz' = x − x² − y²
Parameters
Seed
4
Method
RK4
Measured while drawing
Integration steps
340,000

HISTORY

Where this idea comes from

  1. 1890

    Henri Poincaré, working on the three-body problem, first glimpses chaos: a tiny change at the start changes the whole outcome.

  2. 1963

    Edward Lorenz at MIT reduces a model of the atmosphere to three equations and finds that weather cannot be predicted far ahead.

  3. 1971

    David Ruelle and Floris Takens coin the term "strange attractor".

  4. 1972

    Lorenz's talk "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" gives the butterfly effect its name.

In nature

Lorenz's equations describe warm air rising, cooling and falling, the same motion that builds storm clouds in summer.