I work on control theory, trying to steer dynamics toward desired states. My cat Patia (her name is inspired by Hypatia), however, has a different control objective: making her food supply blow up. That is, let \(u(x,t)\) denote the food density at location \(x\) in the house at time \(t\). Let \( \omega \) be a small subregion of the house containing her food bowl. Her objective is to design a control law that guarantees the existence of a finite time \(\tau > 0\) —preferably not too far in the future— such that the “controlled” food density satisfies \(\|u(\cdot,t)\|_{L^1(\omega)} \to \infty\) as \(t \to \tau^-\).
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