Show HN: Chaos Studies – attractors and spatial audio (iOS/Mac/Playdate)
jlong Sunday, February 15, 2026
My friend built this and I'm blown away with how much fun it is and the high level of polish. It renders 9 different strange attractors (Lorenz, Rössler, Aizawa, Chen, etc.) as particle systems — thousands of particles tracing chaotic paths in real time. You can rotate and zoom with touch/trackpad in 3D.
The sound is the part that surprised me. It's not a soundtrack — the audio is generated from the motion itself using spatial audio, so tones shift as the attractor's behavior changes and the sound moves around you as you rotate the form. Put on headphones.
The Playdate version uses the crank to rotate the attractor. Pure black and white. It's a completely different vibe.
My 9-year-old loves it too, which I wasn't expecting. Would love to hear what HN thinks — especially if anyone has suggestions for other attractor systems worth adding.