Chaos: Making a New Science - Softcover

Gleick, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140092501 ISBN 13: 9780140092509

Publisher: Penguin, 1988

Synopsis

Explains the meaning and application of chaos--the study of patterns emerging from seemingly random phenomena--and introduces the scientists responsible for major discoveries in this field

About this title

Review

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

Review

"Fascinating... Almost every paragraph contains a jolt" (New York Times)

"Highly entertaining...a startling look at newly discovered universal laws" (Chicago Tribune)

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0140092501
• ISBN 13: 9780140092509
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368