Different Types of Chaos in Two Simple Differential Equations

Abstract Different types of chaotic flow are possible in the 3-dimensional state spaces of two simple non-linear differential equations. The first equation consists of a 2-variable, double-focus subsystem complemented by a linearly coupled third variable. It produces at least three types of chaos: Lorenzian chaos, "sandwich" chaos, and "horseshoe" chaos. Two figure 8-shaped chaotic regimes of the latter type are possible simultaneously, running through each other like 2 links of a chain. In the second equation, a transition between two different types of horseshoe chaos (spiral chaos and screw chaos) is possible. While sandwich chaos allows for a genuine strange attractor, the same has not yet been demonstrated for horseshoe chaos. Unlike the situation in the analogous 1-dimensional case, an emergent period-3 solution is not necessarily stable in the horseshoe. Since chaos is a "super-oscillation" (emergent with the third dimension), the existence of "super-chaos" is postulated for the nect level. A six-minute, super-8 sound film, demonstrating the different behavioral modes and their bifurcations in the 2 equations, has been prepared. Chaos sounds as musical as a snore.