The state of a mechanical or dynamical system, such as a double pendulum or populations of competing species, can be specified with information about the system’s variables; for example, the positions (x1, y1, z1) and (x2, y2, z2) of the pendulum’s ends might be given. Thus, every possible configuration of the double pendulum corresponds to a coordinate vector in ℝ6. But because the two pendulum have fixed lengths, the possible configurations of the pendulum are actually a 4 (= 6–2) dimensional subset of ℝ6. This dimension, here 4, equals the degrees of freedom of the system.