English

How to lose at Monte Carlo: a simple dynamical system whose typical statistical behavior is non computable

Dynamical Systems 2019-11-04 v2 Computational Complexity

Abstract

We consider the simplest non-linear discrete dynamical systems, given by the logistic maps fa(x)=ax(1x)f_{a}(x)=ax(1-x) of the interval [0,1][0,1]. We show that there exist real parameters a(0,4)a\in (0,4) for which almost every orbit of faf_a has the same statistical distribution in [0,1][0,1], but this limiting distribution is not Turing computable. In particular, the Monte Carlo method cannot be applied to study these dynamical systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1910.09625,
  title  = {How to lose at Monte Carlo: a simple dynamical system whose typical statistical behavior is non computable},
  author = {Cristobal Rojas and Michael Yampolsky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.09625},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

13 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-23T11:50:31.802Z