Generator

fixed-point

A generator in the topology library, called 10 times across 2 essays. Below: what it draws at its defaults and at each mode an essay asks for, what it checks while drawing, and everywhere it is used.

fixed-point is one function. Everything below came out of it during this build, at parameters taken from the essays rather than invented for this page — so a figure here is the same figure a reader meets in an essay, and if the generator changes, this page changes with it.

At its defaults

A map of the interval must fix a pointa continuous map of the interval, drawn with the diagonal. Every continuous map of the interval into itself meets the diagonal somewhere; this one does so at x = 0.6944.00.20.40.60.8100.20.40.60.81xf(x)f(0.694) = 0.694the diagonal

show: "hairy"

The field that cannot be combedA tangent field on the sphere, flowing along the meridians. Every arrow is tangent to the surface, and at the two poles there is no direction for an arrow to take — the field is zero there, and no rearrangement removes both zeros.zeroa tangent field98 arrows, every onechecked perpendicularto the radius2 zerosand the sum of theirindices is forced to be 2

show: "index"

What a zero looks like, and the number it carriesThree fields with an isolated zero at the centre. Walking once round the zero, the field vector turns through a whole number of revolutions, and that number is what survives any deformation of the field.a source: index +1a saddle: index −1index +2

show: "disc"

Every orbit runs into the same placeA rotate-and-shrink map of the disc into itself, followed from twelve starting points. All of them converge on one point, which the map leaves exactly where it is.fixed at (0.407, 0.030)

What it checks while it draws

Collected by running the family and listening to lib/verify.js, not written here. The count is how many separate times this build put that claim to the test.

Where it is called

Changing this generator changes every figure on this list. That is what makes the list worth publishing rather than keeping in a check script.

The whole library · What the figures prove