- Author
- Shashank Tomar
- Published
- 5 September 2025
- Kind
- Personal blog post, with interactive visuals
- Original
- blog.shashanktomar.com/posts/strange-attractors
- Subject
- Images made by rules
- Themes
- Rules that generate, Art through code, Getting good
What it is
Shashank Tomar introduces dynamical systems and chaos through an interactive strange attractor. The post moves from phase space to attractors to a Three.js visualization. Tomar says the knowledge comes from building it, not from formal study.
What it says
- A dynamical system is a space of possible states plus rules for moving between them.
- An attractor is a set of states a system tends to settle toward.
- Chaotic systems follow rules yet stay sensitive to small changes in starting conditions.
- The Thomas attractor needs only three short equations and one parameter.
- Starting particles from different shapes shows the sensitivity directly.
What evidence it gives
The evidence is the working visualization and standard material on chaos theory. The post tells the familiar story of Edward Lorenz's rounded weather inputs.
Interests and limits
Tomar warns readers looking for advanced mathematical explanations that this may not suit them. The post's account of why rules produce unpredictability is informal.