A model for dynamical systems with strange attractors

Abstract: We derive a system with one degree of freedom that models a class of dynamical systems with strange attractors in three dimensions. This system retains all the characteristics of chaotic attractors and is expressed by a second-order integro-differential equation which mimics a spring-like problem. We determine the potential energy, the rate of change of the kinetic energy of this system, and show that is self-oscillating.