Limiting Behaviour
Upon iteration, one may find that there are sets that shrink and converge towards a single point. In such a case, the point that is converged to is known as an attractive fixed point. Conversely, iteration may give the appearance of points diverging away from a single point; this would be the case for an unstable fixed point. When the points of the orbit converge to one or more limits, the set of accumulation points of the orbit is known as the limit set or the ω-limit set.
The ideas of attraction and repulsion generalize similarly; one may categorize iterates into stable sets and unstable sets, according to the behaviour of small neighborhoods under iteration.
Other limiting behaviours are possible; for example, wandering points are points that move away, and never come back even close to where they started.
Read more about this topic: Iterated Function
Famous quotes containing the words limiting and/or behaviour:
“There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
“The quality of moral behaviour varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)