Feigenbaum constant first 10 digits

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Mitchell Feigenbaum (1944–2019), 4.66920160910299067185320382…

Behind the Feigenbaum Constant

It’s called the Feigenbaum constant, and it’s about 4.6692016. And it shows up, quite universally, in certain kinds of mathematical—and physical—systems that can exhibit chaotic behavior.

Mitchell Feigenbaum, who died on June 30 at the age of 74, was the person who discovered it—back in 1975, by doing experimental mathematics on a pocket calculator.

It became a defining discovery in the history of chaos theory. But when it was first discovered, it was a surprising, almost bizarre result, that didn’t really connect with anything that had been studied before. Somehow, though, it’s fitting that it should have been Mitchell Feigenbaum—who I knew for nearly 40 years—who would discover it.

Trained in theoretical physics, and a connoisseur of its mathematical traditions, Mitchell always seemed to see himself as an outsider. He looked a bit like Beethoven—and projected a certain stylish sense of intellectual mystery. He would often ma

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Mitchell J. Feigenbaum

Mitchell J. Feigenbaum, a mathematical physicist whose groundbreaking work on deterministic chaos influenced fields ranging from cardiology to cartography, died in New York City on June 30 at the age of 74. Feigenbaum was the Toyota Professor and director of the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology at Rockefeller. Among his many accomplishments, he was the first to discover that many different physical systems follow a common “periodic doubling” path to chaos, paving the way for the emergence of the discipline known today as chaos theory.

In physics and mathematics, deterministic chaos denotes behavior so complex and unpredictable that it appears to be random; but in fact, it is the consequence of so-called deterministic nonlinear equations, for which the present situation exactly predicts the future behavior. The subtlety of chaos means that the slightest change in the present situation produces enormous changes in the subsequent behavior, and thus the long-range future is unpredictable. Phenomena such as turbulence in fluids, including weather, ob

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Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum

Mitchell Feigenbaum's father is Abraham Joseph Feigenbaum, an analytic chemist whose parents had emigrated from a town near Warsaw in Poland to the United States. Mitchell's (or Mitch's as he is known) mother is Mildred Sugar whose parents emigrated to the United States from Kiev. Mitchell was the middle child of his parents three children, having an older brother Edward and a younger sister Glenda.

Mitchell entered a public school for gifted children when he was five years old. Unlike Edward who displayed all the characteristics of a child prodigy, reading from a very young age, Mitchell could not read when he entered school and he needed tutoring from his mother to bring him up to the level of the other children. Moved to a different school, he became somewhat bored and had no friends among the other children. In fact up until the time he went to university Mitchell would not enjoy the company of his fellow pupils.

Feigenbaum's mother taught him algebra when he was in the fifth form but reading continued to be something that he did not like much.