Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19507 in Books
• Published on: 1988-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Amazon.com
Few writers distinguish themselves by their ability to write about complicated, even obscure topics clearly and engagingly. James Gleick, a former science writer for the New York Times, resides in this exclusive category. In Chaos, he takes on the job of depicting the first years of the study of chaos--the seemingly random patterns that characterize many natural phenomena.

This is not a purely technical book. Instead, it focuses as much on the scientists studying chaos as on the chaos itself. In the pages of Gleick's book, the reader meets dozens of extraordinary and eccentric people. For instance, Mitchell Feigenbaum, who constructed and regulated his life by a 26-hour clock and watched his waking hours come in and out of phase with those of his coworkers at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

As for chaos itself, Gleick does an outstanding job of explaining the thought processes and investigative techniques that researchers bring to bear on chaos problems. Rather than attempt to explain Julia sets, Lorenz attractors, and the Mandelbrot Set with gigantically complicated equations, Chaos relies on sketches, photographs, and Gleick's wonderful descriptive prose.

From Publishers Weekly
Gleick here adventurously attempts to describe the revolutionary science of "chaos," a challengingly abstract new look at nature in terms of nonlinear dynamics. "A ground-breaking book about what seems to be the future of physics," praised PW. Illustrated. 100,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Chaos-theory, touted as the third revolution in 20th-century science after relativity and quantum mechanics, uses traditional mathematics to understand complex natural systems with too many variables to study. Philosophically, it counters the Second Law of Thermodynamics by demonstrating the "spontaneous emergence of self-organization." In this new science apparent disorder is meaningful; the structure of chaos can be mapped by plotting graphically the calculations of nonlinear mathematics using "fractal" geometry, a brainchild of Benoit Mandelbrot in which symmetrical patterns repeat across different scales. With jocular descriptions of eccentric characters such as the "Dynamical Systems collective," (a.k.a. Chaos Cabal) of the University of CaliforniaSanta Cruz, Chaos offers an absorbing look at trailblazers on a new scientific frontier. Laurie Tynan, Montgomery Cty.
Norristown P.L., Pa.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful!
Chaos by James Gleick is a must read if you like keeping up with science or just like reading things that broaden the perspectives of your thinking. Gleick does a masterful job of simplifying the science of Chaos to a level any bright kid can understand while not diminishing any of its importance or ignoring any of the details. If you're curious about what a Klein bottle actually is or a Lorenzo's butterflies, this is the book for you. The illustrations of the Mandlbrot sets are truly amazing and worth the cost of the book just to look at. With his clear, concise style Gleick leads the reader through the history of Chaos science while building a strong foundation for the understanding of it. You don't need to know how to use a slide rule to read this book and it would be a memorable gift for any adult or child interested in science.

Good read
Nutshell review - a good book, written well and very entertaining. A good introduction to chaos and complexity science for us lay-people.

Non-Fiction
A popular science type of book (the popular part you can see from the numbers), where Gleick takes a look at the science of Chaos theory.

Not in a rigorous mathematical way, but more in a history of and introduction and overview of the subject, with of course examples of what he is talking about throughout.


3.5 out of 5