3 Dimensional Lorenz Attractor: A Screensaver
This 3D screensaver draws a Lorenz Attractor while rotating the camera around it. Unlike other 3D plots of this strange attractor that I've seen, this one tries to demonstrate the system's sensitivity to initial conditions. It does this by starting with three points that are very close together and using different colours to simultaneously plot their evolution over time. At first, the three plots are very close to each other, but after a short while they suddenly diverge and provide a good demonstration of the Butterfly Effect.
If all this maths talk is nonsense to you, download it anyway as it looks nice ;-)
Screenshots
Click thumbnails for full size images. Download and run to see the attractor drawn whilst rotating.
Download
3DLorenzAttractor.scr (95 KB)
Instructions
After downloading, use Windows Explorer to right-click on the file and choose the "Install" option. You should then be able to configure the screen saver from the Display Properties entry in the Windows Control Panel.
Works with all versions of Windows from Windows 95 onwards - most recently tested on the 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Edition.