Chaos in the Kitchen: A Hands-on Demonstration

Abstract

This article outlines a class activity where students prepare croissants to get an intuitive feeling for the nature of a strange attractor. In particular during the preparation of the pastry dough, students investigate the effects of stretching and folding. These physical processes force trajectories (in this case the pastry dough) to remain bounded while simultaneously moving apart. Students also explore the sensitive dependence on initial conditions for these trajectories by adding drops of food coloring to the dough and watching the color spread throughout the croissants.