attractor

noun

at·​trac·​tor ə-ˈtrak-tər also -ˌtȯr 

plural -s

1

or less commonly attracter

ə-ˈtrak-tər

: a person or thing that attracts someone or something

… it is far and away the best attractor of the whitetail deer I have ever known.

—Bill Geagan, Field & Stream, December 1970

… the flower spikes are great hummingbird and butterfly attracters.

—Kathy Huber, Houston Chronicle, 12 Nov. 2011

2

: a state or group of states of a dynamic physical or mathematical system toward which the system trends

Students of chaos have clung to the notion that chaotic systems retain some shreds of order. The shreds manifest themselves in the form of an attractor, a pattern of behavior toward which the system periodically settles.

—Philip Yam, Scientific American, March 1994

Such waves are termed internal gravity waves. They permeate both the atmosphere and the ocean, and are very important for their internal dynamics on small to medium scales, where they transport momentum and cause local mixing. They may also exist in closed containers, where they converge on 'attractors'—closed curves determined by the geometry of the container—and then propagate energy along them.

—Peter G. Baines, Nature, 7 Aug. 1997

see also strange attractor

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