Waterwheel
Art widget demonstrating the Lorenz strange attractor.
The waterwheel part of this relates to the Lorenz system. As I remember, the system that Lorenz described/discovered could also model a waterwheel like this one, where buckets fill up with water. The wheel moves clockwise or counterclockwise unpredictably, which happens here. Don't ask me more, though!
If I remember correctly there are also a pair (trio?) of fireflies who fly in a pattern defined by the Lorenz formulas, i.e., they trace out the attractor. They start at almost the identical position but soon diverge.
This was originally created for the launch of the Blackberry Playbook. They sent me a free device for making this— wow, those were the days! I think the Playbook is/was a really nice device.
Source code released 2026-02-06.
Source code (Adobe air)Lorenz system (Wikipedia)
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