Dynamics: Numerical Explorations

Plotting trajectories is a useful capability in exploring a dynamical system, but it is just the beginning. The Maryland Chaos Group developed an array of tools to help visualize the properties of dynamical systems induding automatic method for plotting all "e;basins and attractors "e; , and for automatically searching for all computing "e;straddle trajectories"e;, periodic orbits of a specified period. In the investigations of the Maryland Chaos Group, I. A. Yorke found it useful to be able to combine these various basic tools with each other into so that each new study could benefit a single package that grew with time from the previous programming efforts. He has been writing this software and distributing versions for the last nine years. The resulting program Dynamics requires either a Unix workstation running XII graphics or an IBM PC compatible computer. Eric I. Kostelich has put in a great deal of effort to port the program to Unix workstations. Some basic tools in Dynamics, such as the computation of Lyapunov exponents and the use of Newton's method are standard. The method of computation of stable and unstable manifolds is superior to standard procedures. Dynamics is currently being used extensively in our research and it is being used in undergraduate courses. Dynamics: Numerical Explora#ons provides an introduction to and overview of fundamental tools and numerical methods together with many simple examples. All the numerical methods described in this book are implemented in Dynamics.