Welcome
to the homepage of Dynamical Systems and Chaos, an undergraduate course offered yearly by the Complexity Group. This course addresses unexperienced students eager to learn the theoretical foundations of dynamical systems. Its syllabus includes discrete mappings, bifurcation theory (in both continuous and discrete systems), strange attractors, fractals, etc. In addition to these topics the final lectures of the course will be dedicated to the numerical treatment of ordinary differential equations with emphasis on (embedded) Runge-Kutta methods.
The course is taught by Prof. Mogens Høgh Jensen. and Assoc. Prof. Mathias S. Heltberg.
The first course will be at the 2nd/Feb/2026 (Monday). Time and place are arranged as following, for detailed content of the lectures and exercises, go to the Exercises link on the top.
Lectures:
Time:
Mondays 13:15-14:15;
Week 6,8 Aud 02, AKB, Universitetsparken 13; Week 7, 9-10, 12-13, Aud 04, Universitetsparken 5, HCO; Week : 11, Store UP1 - 5-1-02, Universitetsparken 1-3, DIKU
Wednesdays 10:15-12:00; Aud. 2, HCO
Tutorials
The exercise sessions are held by Alessandro Giorgi and Tianxiang Ma. If you have questions, ideas, concerns, you are always welcome to mail them.
Alessandro Giorgi, NBI, alessandro.giorgi@nbi.ku.dk, Tianxiang Ma, NBI, tianxiang.ma@nbi.ku.dk
Time:
Class 1: Mondays 14:30(ca)-16:30; (Kursussal 3, Universitetsparken 15 (Zoo))
Wednesdays 13:15-15:00; (NBB 2.3.I.164, Jagtvej 155)
Class 2: Mondays 14:30(ca)-16:30; (NBB 1.3.B.015, Jagtvej 130)
Wednesdays 13:15-15:00; (NBB 1.3.B.015, Jagtvej 130)
The solutions of all the exercises are online. First look at them after you have tried yourself!!
Teaching materials
The main textbook used on this course is: Steven H. Strogatz' Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos (Addison Wesley, 1994, 2015 or 2024 (PS: All are OK)). Additional materials will be provided for the numerical treatment of ordinary differential equations and bifurcation theory in continuous systems. Appurtenant lecture notes will be available for discrete mappings and their role in the numerical solution of continuous dynamical systems.
Links
- Steve Strogatz lectures on 'YouTube'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycJEoqmQvwg - Good 'Chaos video' on 'YouTube'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJcsL7vyrk