A practical guide to analyzing discrete models (Q6919947)

Roughly speaking, the models evolving with time can be of two types, continuous-time models described by differential equations and discrete-time ones, modeled by difference equations. The advantage of discrete-time models is that computers also work in discrete time. Then, it is simple to write a computer program to simulate the evolution of the sequence \( x_n \) defined. The same task for continuous time models requires a previous step of discretizing the model, adding additional errors to the computations. In contrast, analytical methods more developed for continuous models since the theory of discrete dynamical systems is relatively new. In the last decades, there has been a great interest in modelling some phenomena of social and natural sciences by using difference equations, that is, discrete-time models. The paper introduce the techniques in the most general framework, usually illustrated with a model. From this general setting, authors move to scenarios that are more concrete where analytical results will support the simulations. The work differentiates between simple dynamics, given by periodic orbits, and complex dynamics, given by unpredictable or chaotic orbits.