DynamicalModelsofLove-UniversityofWisconsin-Madison.PDFVIP

Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, Vol. 8, No. 3, July, 2004. © 2004 Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology Life Sciences Dynamical Models of Love 1 J. C. Sprott , University of Wisconsin, Madison Abstract. Following a suggestion of Strogatz, this paper examines a sequence of dynamical models involving coupled ordinary differential equations describing the time-variation of the love or hate displayed by individuals in a romantic relationship. The models start with a linear system of two individuals and advance to love triangles and finally to include the effect of nonlinearities, which are shown to produce chaos. Key Words. Love, romance, differential equations, chaos. INTRODUCTION The power of mathematics has rarely been applied to the dynamics of romance. In his book, Strogatz (1994) has a short section on love affairs and several related mathematical exercises. Essentially the same model was described earlier by Rapoport (1960), and it has also been studied by Radzicki (1993). Related discrete dynamical models of the verbal interaction of married couples have recently been proposed by Gottman, Murray, Swanson, Tyson, Swanson (2002). Although Strogatz’s model was originally intended more to motivate students than as a serious description of love affairs, it makes several interesting and plausible predictions and suggests extensions that produce an even wider range of behavior. This paper is written in the same spirit and extends the ideas to love triangles including nonlinearities, which are shown to produce chaos. An obvious difficulty in any model of love is defining what is meant by love and quantifying it in some meaningful way (Sternberg Barnes 1988).