Activities: Iterating Linear Functions—An Introduction to Dynamical Systems

Abstract

The arrival of computers has caused some major changes in both mathematics and mathematics education. One of the biggest shifts has been from an emphasis on symbolic methods to one on numerical methods. One field of mathematics, dynamical systems, requires considerable number crunching and is just coming into its own because we currently have the ability to perform extensive calculations easily. This article introduces students to this new field. The study of sequences created by using numerical iteration provides interesting new ways to approach many of the concepts central to the secondary mathematics curriculum, such as functions in general and linear and exponential functions in particular.