scavo@cie.uoregon.edu (Tom Scavo) (04/18/91)
Follow-ups directed to comp.theory.dynamic-sys: In article <1991Apr17.221854.18814@walt.disney.com> sma@walt.disney.com (Steve Acheson) writes: >mjb@acsu.buffalo.edu (Matthew J Bernhardt) writes: >>alf@uni-paderborn.de (Alf Wachsmann) writes: >>>What _is_ chaos or when _does_ a system behave in a chaotic way? >>>Are there any definitions of these terms? >>>Any hints, references or opinions are welcome. > >> [ definition of chaos deleted ] >> A *VERY* good introductory book (IMHO) is James Gleick's Chaos: The >>Making of a New Science. > >Another even better book (IMHO) is Does God Play Dice, by umm ?? >Sorry author's name eludes me for the moment, but it is very good The author is Ian Stewart (Basil Blackwell, New York, 1989, Q172.5.C45 S74) and, yes, I also thought it was better than Gleick in many respects (if you can get past the overly long historical introduction). Stewart knows his stuff. Unfor- tunately, the book (at the least the above edition) is poorly typeset with numerous typographical errors. Has anybody else seen a cleaner edition? Another book worth looking at is _Chaos, Fractals, and Dynam- ics: Computer Experiments in Mathematics_ by Robert L. Devaney (Addison_Wesley, Menlo Park, CA, 1990). More mathematical, but in a gentle sort of way. Starts out with real mappings and works it way through material on complex iterations. Has a chapter on chaos, but unfortunately it's one of the weakest in the book, imho. I'll also mention a book of reprints edited by Predrag Cvitanovic (acute accent over the "c") entitled _Universality in Chaos_ (Adam Hilger Ltd., Bristol, 1984, QC174.84.U55). Excellent selection of influential papers. The editor gives a nice introduction in which he says "The essence of this subject is incommunicable in print; intuition is developed by computing. We urge the reader to carry through a few simple numerical experiments on a desktop computer, because that is probably the only way to start perceiving order in chaos." I tend to agree with this point of view. Tom Scavo scavo@cie.uoregon.edu