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Before we start with the review, let's take a moment to appreciate how good of a science communicator Ian Stewart is. Now on with the nitty gritty. When faced with accepting Quantum Mechanics, Einstein famously said: "God does not play dice with the universe", to which Stephen Hawking wittily replied: Leggi tutto

What a great introduction to chaos theory! This book is not only well-written, but it's also incredibly interesting.

It's stunning and intriguing review of nonlinear systems (chaos), from countless real world perspectives. Stewart's humorous and engaging writing style makes the book a pleasure. He starts from simple mathematical equations and simple physical systems such as pendulums and turbulent water, and routi Leggi tutto

At times a bit technical, this is indeed an intriguing book, a passionate account of Stewart on chaos theory and how endless applications and uses it has. I really enjoyed it, and recommend it to anyone to challenge your perspective on how things happen in world.

This book really gets into the theoretical stuff that was missing in Gleick's book on chaos. It still doesn't go heavily into the math but I struggled with some of the more technical material. I will certainly come back to. Stewart is a gifted expositor.

The best mathematical models for many physical events rely on chaotic formulas and the number continues to grow rapidly. It now appears that some exposure to chaos and fractals will be a necessary component of the education of all future applied mathematicians. Given the simplicity of many of the eq Leggi tutto

Nothing particularly new, but I guess I've read enough of these now that that was pretty likely. It's a very good overview of the whats and whys of chaos theory, comparable to Gribbin's Deep Simplicity, though maybe slightly less accessible. The final chapter is marred by an ill-conceived rant at a