LYAPUNOV EXPONENTS FOR PEDESTRIANS

The exponential divergence of chaotic trajectories of a driven nonline ar oscillator is considered. A particularly simple method of determina tion of the Lyapunov exponents of experimental data is shown to yield quantitative estimates which scale with the control parameter of the s ystem in accord with expectation. Numerical comparisons with conventio nal approaches, which are unsuited to pedagogic use, demonstrate the a dequacy of the present method in this context.