Hyper chaos: Laboratory experiment and numerical confirmation

Hyperchaos has been observed, for the first time, from a real physical system: a very simple fourth-order electrical circuit. It is autonomous and reciprocal and has only one nonlinear element, a three-segment piecewise-linear resistor. Because of the circuit´s simplicity, the laboratory measurements have been confirmed by digital computer simulations. The hyperchaotic nature is confirmed by the two positive Lyapunov exponents associated with the attractor, which is a fractal with a Lyapunov dimension between 3 and 4.