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Science 8 March 1996:
Vol. 271. no. 5254, pp. 1376 - 1380
DOI: 10.1126/science.271.5254.1376
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Articles

Basins of Attraction

Helena E. Nusse * and James A. Yorke

Many remarkable properties related to chaos have been found in the dynamics of nonlinear physical systems. These properties are often seen in detailed computer studies, but it is almost always impossible to establish these properties rigorously for specific physical systems. This article presents some strange properties about basins of attraction. In particular, a basin of attraction is a ``Wada basin'' if every point on the common boundary of that basin and another basin is also on the boundary of a third basin. The occurrence of this strange property can be established precisely because of the concept of a basin cell.

The authors are with the Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
* Permanent address: University of Groningen, Econometrics, Post Office Box 800, NL-9700 AV Groningen, Netherlands.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)