Chaotic difference equations are dense

Abstract

A continuous function mapping a compact interval of the real line into itself is called chaotic if the difference equation defined in terms of it behaves chaotically in the sense of Li and Yorke. The set of all such chaotic functions is shown to toe a dense subset of the space of continuous mappings of that interval into itself with the max norm. This result indicates the structural instability of nonchaotic difference equations with respect to chaotic behaviour.