ChaosLab is a teaching program in the mathematics of chaos. Chaos is that branch of science describing the behavior of physical, ecological and societal systems which appear to behave erratically but actually reflect an underlying order. The study of chaos begins with the simple idea of feeding the output from basic mathematical functions back into the same functions as input.
ChaosLab is a program which allows the user to do that feed back trick repeatedly for a nearly infinite variety of mathematical functions of real and complex variables. The results are displayed in a variety of graphical formats, and as tables of data.
ChaosLab may be used as a companion program to Order by M. Casco Associates. Order introduces the subject of chaos with text and displays that illustrate the fundamentals, spending more time explaining the math than does ChaosLab. ChaosLab extends the modeling capability of Order, enabling users to write their own functions to be analyzed as well as analyze those included as examples. ChaosLab is an excellent supplement to any college freshman or high school advanced placement course introducing the mathematics of chaos.
