Chaos Lab vs Recursivity
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Chaos Lab
Explore the beauty of chaos through interactive simulations of mathematical objects, chemical reactions, and celestial mechanics. Manipulate parameters with device tilt and touch to create stunning visual art and understand complex scientific principles.
- Interactive strange attractors
- Chemical oscillator simulations
- 3-body chaos simulation
- Julian fractal morphing
- Real-time parameter control
- Multiple attractors included
Read full descriptionHide full description
Chaos Lab puts the beauty of chaos in your hands. With a tilt of your device, you control the parameters of beautiful mathematical objects called strange attractors, the reaction rates of a chemical oscillator, the position of two stars in a 3-body chaos simulation, and the shape of the Julian fractal. Now you can be an experimentalist and an artist. Using real-time integration of over 6,000 points for the attractors whose parameters are tied to your motion, over 7,000 data points for a fractal which morphs at your command, ten "asteroids" demonstrating chaotic sensitivity to initial conditions in a jittering twin-star system where the stars move with your tilt (can you keep them from escaping?), and a real-time BZ-reaction simulation which you control by both tilt and touch, this is chaos as you've never seen it before. Chaos Lab comes loaded with four of the most stunning attractors in chaos theory. The Rössler and Lorenz attractors are well known, but the Thomas and Newton-Leipnik attractors are relatively new and quite amazing! This work has been supported in part by grant PHY-0754081 from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Nonlinear Dynamics Research Group at Drexel University (directed by Dr. Robert Gilmore), and the Department of Physics at Drexel University. Please note, some of these experiments will run slower on the older models of iPhones and iPod touch devices. Find the beauty in the chaos!
Recursivity
Explore the beauty of recursive functions, chaos, and fractals through interactive demonstrations and an exploratory tool. Investigate mathematical concepts like the Mandelbrot Set, Julia sets, and cellular automata.
- Interactive fractal exploration
- Mandelbrot and Julia set visualizations
- Newton's method demonstrations
- Sierpinski and Pascal's triangle patterns
- Cellular automata simulations
- Mathematical beauty exploration
Read full descriptionHide full description
Partly a book, partly a set of demonstrations, and partly an exploratory tool, this app is all about recursive functions, chaos, and fractals. Investigate the Mandelbrot Set, Julia sets, Newton's method of finding complex roots, Sierpinski's triangle, Pascal's triangle, and patterns created by cellular automata. Explore mathematical beauty and complexity.
Screenshots
Verdict
Chaos Lab and Recursivity both sit at 4.9 stars, but that hides the real split: 69% of Chaos Lab's written reviews are positive against 0% of Recursivity's. Chaos Lab also leads on ratings volume (8 vs 1). Recursivity's advantage is iOS requirement (10.0 vs 18.0). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Chaos Lab against 5.0 for Recursivity. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chaos Lab has 8 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 69% of Chaos Lab's written reviews are positive against 0% of Recursivity's.
| Parameter | Chaos Lab | Recursivity |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (8 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.8% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 8 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 42 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Timothy D. Jones | Thomas Bretl |
Customer experience
Chaos Lab
Recursivity
In-app purchases
Chaos Lab
No in-app purchases
Recursivity
No in-app purchases








