A Lorenz attractor is a chaotic system that simulates a simplified weather pattern. It describes convection currents in a a block of air heated from below and cooled from above. Here is a picture of a Lorenz attractor:
What does it mean to be a "chaotic system?" Put simply, the system must never follow a pattern that repeats, and it must have a strong dependence on the initial conditions. I will explain more about the latter in a future post.
To help explain the fact that chaotic systems follow a non-repeating pattern, watch this video of the above Lorenz attractor as it is drawn on the screen:
The motion appears to be random, for the particle switches between the two sides unpredictably. For most intents and purposes, you could call that "random." However, there is a difference between chaos and true randomness. Chaotic motion, while unpredictable, follows a clear formula. True randomness cannot be described by equations.
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