Deterministic Chaos

Indifferent Fixed Points

A fixed point is indifferent if some nearby points iterate toward the fixed point and other nearby points iterate away from the fixed point, or if they do not move at all.

Click the picture for an animation.

If a fixed point is indifferent, at the fixed point the tangent line to the graph has slope +1.

However, merely having slope +1 does not guarantee a fixed point is indifferent.

Some stable fixed points have tangents with slope +1, as do some unstable fixed points.

Stable, unstable, or indifferent is determined by whether both sides of the graph remain inside the blue region. For an indifferent fixed point, one side must remain inside, the other go outside.

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