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Description edit
James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the twentieth century's third revolution.
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
- - An easy introduction to the field of chaos theory, combined with a history of the field.
Summary edit
James Gleick explains chaos theory through a history of the field, and the contributions of many scientists. He describes patterns such as Julia sets, Mandlebrot sets, and Lorenz attractors, and the applications of chaos theory, "from clouds to blood vessels." Complete with diagrams and 8... read more
People edit
- Edward Lorenz: An American mathematician and meteorologist and a pioneer of chaos theory.
- Ralph Abraham: An American mathematician at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
- Benoit Mandelbrot: A French and American mathematician known as the father of fractal geometry.
- Mitchell Feigenbaum: An American mathematical physicist and a pioneer of chaos theory.
- Albert Libchaber: A French and American physicist at Rockefeller University.
- Albert Einstein: A German-Swiss theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate; considered the father of modern physics.
- James Yorke: An American mathematical physicist at the University of Maryland, College Park.
- Shaw: Add a description of this character.
- Steve Smale
- Harry Swinney
- Hubbard
- Ruelle
- Poincare
- Landau
- Schaffer
- Scholz
- Huberman
- Crutchfield
- Koch
- Winfree
- Kuhn
- Wilson
- Bourbaki
- D'arcy Thompson
- Robert May
- Schwenk
- Santa Cruz
- Marcus
- Von Neumann
- Henon
- Mandell
- Kadanoff
- Houthakker
- Mandelbmt
- Shannon
- Julia
- Packard
- Richter
- Laplace
Organizations edit
- Los Alamos Laboratory: A United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security, located in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology: A private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- UC Berkeley: The University of California at Berkeley; a public research university located in Berkeley, California.
- UC Santa Cruz: The University of California at Santa Cruz; a public research university located in Santa Cruz, California
- Cornell University: A private university located in Ithaca, New York.
First Sentence edit
The butterfly effect.
Table of Contents edit
Prologue
The Butterfly Effect
Edward Lorenz and his toy weather. The computer misbehaves. Long-range forecasting is doomed. Order masquerading as randomness. A world of nonlinearity. "We completely missed the point."
Revolution
A revolution in seeing. Pendulum clocks, space balls, and playground swings. The invention of the horseshoe. A mystery solved: Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
Life's Ups and Downs
Modeling wildlife populations. Nonlinear science, "the study of non-elephant animals." Pitchfork bifurcations and a ride on the Spree. A movie of chaos and a messianic appeal.
A Geometry of Nature
A discovery about cotton prices. A refugee from Bourbaki. Transmission errors and jagged shores. New dimensions. The monsters of fractal geometry. Quakes in the schizosphere. From clouds to blood vessels. The trash cans of science. "To see the world in a grain of sand."
Strange Attractors
A problem for God. Transitions in the laboratory. Rotating cylinders and a turning point. David Ruelle's idea for turbulence. Loops in phase space. Mille-feuilles and sausage. An astronomer's mapping. "Fireworks or galaxies."
Universality
A new start at Los Alamos. The renormalization group. Decoding color. The rise of numerical experimentation. Mitchel Feigenbaum's breakthrough. A universal theory. The rejection letters. Meeting in Como. Clouds and paintings.
The Experimenter
Helium in a Small Box. "Insolid billowing of the solid." Flow and form in nature. Albert Libchaber's delicate triumph. Experiment joins theory. From one dimension to many.
Images of Chaos
The complex plane. Surprise in Newton's method. The Mandelbrot set: sprouts and tendrils. Art and commerce meet science. Fractal basin boundaries. The chaos game.
The Dynamical Systems Collective
Santa Cruz and the sixties. The analog computer. Was this science? "A long-range vision." Measuring unpredictability. Information theory. From microscale to macroscale. The dripping faucet. Audiovisual aids. An era ends.
Inner Rhythms
A misunderstanding about models. The complex body. The dynamical heart. Resetting the biological clock. Fatal arrhythmia. Chick embryos and abnormal beats. Chaos as health.
Chaos and Beyond
New beliefs, new definitions. The Second Law, the snowflake puzzle, and loaded dice. Opportunity and necessity.
Notes on Sources and Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Index
Glossary edit
- The Butterfly Effect: The butterfly effect is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory; namely that small differences in the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.
- Chaos: Mathematically, chaos refers to a very specific kind of unpredictability: deterministic behaviour that is very sensitive to its initial conditions.
- Lorenz attractor: The Lorenz attractor, named for Edward N. Lorenz, is a fractal structure corresponding to the long-term behavior of the Lorenz oscillator. The Lorenz oscillator is a 3-dimensional dynamical system that exhibits chaotic flow, noted for its lemniscate shape.
- Dynamical systems: The dynamical system concept is a mathematical formalization for any fixed "rule" which describes the time dependence of a point's position in its ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a pipe, and the number of fish each spring in a lake.
- Mandelbrot set: In mathematics the Mandelbrot set, named after Benoît Mandelbrot, is a set of points in the complex plane, the boundary of which forms a fractal.
- Julia set: In the context of complex dynamics, a topic of mathematics, the Julia set and the Fatou set are two complementary sets defined from a function. Informally, the Fatou set of the function consists of values with the property that all nearby values behave similarly under repeated iteration of the function, and the Julia set consists of values such that an arbitrarily small perturbation can cause drastic changes in the sequence of iterated function values. Thus the behavior of the function on the Fatou set is 'regular', while on the Julia set its behavior is 'chaotic'.
Series & Lists edit
Authors & Contributors edit
- James Gleick (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Viking Adult
Country: USA
Publication Date: October 29, 1987
ISBN: 978-0670811786
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Viking Adult
Country: USA
Publication Date: October 29, 1987
ISBN: 978-0670811786
Page Count: 360
Awards edit
- Pulitzer Prize (1987)
- National Book Award (1987)
- Pulitzer Prize (Finalist, 1988: General Nonfiction)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Q172.5.C45G54 1988
- Dewey: 003'.857
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