Portable Iterlab

Iterlab is a program built specially for viewing graphical iteration graphs.

Iteration is simply the process of repeatedly taking the results of a function and feeding them back into the same function. For this purpose the function, y=f(x) could be representative of some process in motion, called a dynamical system.

Iterlab is for viewing the one-step feedback process, and represents one class of many types of feedback methods. You could go on and begin iterating functions using complex numbers from there comes the Mandelbrot set and other such beautiful and intriguing objects.

Depending on the function and the starting value, the iterates could converge to a point (sometimes this will happen quickly other times it may take a long time), sometimes they cycle back between two or more points. Sometimes the points repel or take off to infinity, or never come to rest and will keep going all around the function.