Floris Takens (12 November 1940 – 20 June 2010)[1] was a Dutch mathematician known for contributions to the theory of chaotic dynamical systems.

Together with David Ruelle, he predicted that fluid turbulence could develop through a strange attractor, a term they coined, as opposed to the then-prevailing theory of accretion of modes.

He attended schools in The Hague and in Zaandam before serving in the Dutch army for one year (1960–1961).

He was granted a doctorate in mathematics in 1969 under the supervision of Nicolaas Kuiper for a thesis entitled The minimal number of critical points of a function on a compact manifold and the Lusternik–Schnirelmann category.

After his graduate work, Takens spent a year at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, in Bures-sur-Yvette, near Paris, where he worked with David Ruelle, René Thom, and Jacob Palis.