👉 Flashers, a mathematical model developed by Michael Rubinstein and his colleagues, is a discrete-time dynamical system that captures the evolution of a population of organisms over generations. The model uses binary variables to represent the presence or absence of individuals in a population, where each individual can be either "on" (active) or "off" (non-existent). The state of the system at time \( n+1 \) is determined by a rule that depends on the current state and the number of "flashes," which are binary events representing the activation or deactivation of individuals. Specifically, the probability of an individual flashing (becoming active) is influenced by the number of individuals that have already flashed and the current state of the population. This creates a complex, oscillatory behavior that can model various ecological phenomena, such as predator-prey dynamics or the spread of diseases. The flasher map, a visual representation of this system, often exhibits chaotic behavior, making it a powerful tool for understanding the intricate dynamics of population changes.
