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Chaos: Making a New Science (Paperback)

by James Gleick (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 380 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (24 Feb 1997)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0749386061
  • ISBN-13: 978-0749386061
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 17,010 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #2 in  Books > Scientific, Technical & Medical > Mathematics > Applied Mathematics > Chaos & Fractal Theory
    #2 in  Books > Science & Nature > Mathematics > Chaos
    #4 in  Books > Science & Nature > Physics > Chaos & Dynamic Systems

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk 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



Product Description

This book brings together different work in the new field of physics called the chaos theory, an extension of classical mechanics, in which simple and complex causes are seen to interact. Mathematics may only be able to solve simple linear equations which experiment has pushed nature into obeying in a limited way, but now that computers can map the whole plane of solutions of non-linear equations a new vision of nature is revealed. The implications are staggeringly universal in all areas of scientific work and philosophical thought.

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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (2)
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful read !, 24 Jan 2003
By "optimistix" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This book is called 'Chaos : Making a new science' - so it should hardly
surprise anyone that it deals with the history of Chaos, bringing forth
the elementary concepts of the field along the way.
This book isn't, nor does it pretend to be, a textbook on chaos theory,
so one shouldn't expect too much maths or technical details. On the other
hand, a little maths is unavoidable for discussing even the most basic
notions of chaos theory, so the reader should be prepared for some
(not very demanding) maths.

The style adopted by Gleick is to interweave the personal lives of the
major players involved in the birth of chaos with a description the
concepts, thus giving the book a feel of an interesting story while
introducing a plethora of dazzling ideas at the same time.

The idea of self-similarity, of patterns composed of infinitely-repeating
tiny replicas of themselves, is astounding, to say the least. And to
learn that nature is full of such patterns is revealing indeed. The
implications to science and technology are far-reaching and often
surprising - researchers in Computer Networking have discovered that
network traffic in large networks such as the internet may actually be
following self-similar patterns !!

Personally, i found this to be a delightful read - Gleick's writing is
racy, the ideas involved are mind-bending, and the vivid imagery will
stay with you for a long,long time. I fell in love with fractals at
first sight and can gaze at a collection of beautiful fractals for hours.

In brief, this is a light, breezy account of the history of Chaos, with
a gentle introduction to the basic ideas of Chaos without much technical
details and only a minimum of maths.

One of the best 'Science for everyone' books i've ever read!

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars More than just a book!, 10 Dec 2001
This book left me looking at the world in a radically different perspective. It seemed to suggest that in the late twentieth century we were begining to pin down the extremely subtle mathematics that underpinned almost everything and as a consequence were suddenly gaining an incredible insight into what's actually going on behind the scenes of the universe.
You enter this book knowing chaos as a buzzword occasionally touched upon by the media and gradually realise that it describes the 'forces at work' behind a whole array of things from something as trivial as the Newton-Raphson procedure (who'd have thought a simple piece of A-level maths could give rise to cutting adge research?) to matters as important as the weather, the interepherence in phone lines, the populations in an e-cology, indeed (without meaning to give away the book's climax) it's the very set of theories and idea's that keeps human beings alive!
An absolute must for anyone who's ever wondered why they wonder!
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A little chaotic, 21 Nov 2001
By A Customer
It should be noted from the beginning that this is not a "Layman's guide to Chaos theory ". It is in fact a "Once upon a time" account of the birth and development of this fascinating science. The problem is, who this book is trying to fascinate.

The first half is certainly handled well, with Gleick balancing the building up of Chaos Theory with the lives and characters of its pioneers. It does however prelude what is to come in the book: At times, though the language is clear, the concepts become obscured, especially as the author tries to keep things broad and general.

It gets worse in the second half of the book, as it becomes less and less clear who the author is talking to: People with a background in Chaos theory, or people who know nothing about it? The first group would find nothing interesting here apart from happy memoirs, while the second would be left scratching their heads as they go over and over the same paragraphs, trying to decipher the deeper meanings.

As an Introduction to Chaos, the book suffers from over-generalisations and fast pace: Gleick seems happy to glide from the surface of tough concept to the surface of tougher concept and then get poetic with the conclusions, before an ordinary reader realises that there were actually any conclusions to be made. In his own comments the author even "winks" to those in the know, providing "inside jokes" that only the people he has interviewed would probably get. The rest of us outsiders are left baffled and frustrated.

However, as a documentation of Chaos, the book is decent. Well-researched and well-planned, if you already know the specifics of Chaos theory, you 'll enjoy reading a general review of how this breakthrough way of thinking came to be, survived "persecution" and eventually influenced everything it touched.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Gets better and better
I rather think my review is going to be the reverse of "A Customer"'s review! Personally I wasn't overly enamoured with the first half of this book - with the possible exception... Read more
Published 5 months ago by M. Rawson

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for all believers in science
I read this book 20 years ago at a time when I truly believed science had the answers. Just because it's called "chaos theory", don't think that this may be "just a theory", it's... Read more
Published 7 months ago by A. Non

4.0 out of 5 stars Order from Chaos
We all know things that are not predictable. These can be everyday occurrences like the weather, or more specialised events (whether the stock market will go up or down). Read more
Published on 29 Sep 2007 by Mr P R Morgan

5.0 out of 5 stars New wisdom
I love this book because of its association with systems theory and the concept of emergent properties. Read more
Published on 18 May 2007 by Stephen Parry

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Enlightening Introduction to a Whole New World
I am educated to degree level, however my degree is not in any scientific discipline. I only recently developed an interest in science, and have since read many popular science... Read more
Published on 29 Dec 2004 by John K

5.0 out of 5 stars Top Book
This was the first book I ever read on chaos theory. I am not involved in chaos theory at all, but I was interested in finding out more about it as it was big news at the... Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars Non-academics, beware!!!
This isn't your average science book. In parts, it would be better described as a history book. However, when science is explained, it is complicated. Read more
Published on 28 Oct 2002 by Stephen Belford

4.0 out of 5 stars It puts some order in Chaos
Chaos in itself is an interesting subject. A book that puts forward some of the most recent thinking around it has a great chance to be interesting. Read more
Published on 20 Aug 2001 by P. Janeiro

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for the non-mathemeticians amongst us
Which includes me! Its funny but I also developed a better understanding of the maths/physics community from this book too - I didn't realise there was so much competition. Read more
Published on 20 Jul 2001 by pek_uk@hotmail.com

5.0 out of 5 stars Order from chaos!
Well worth reading if you've ever wondered how computers generate some of the complex patterns we so often see in science magazines. Read more
Published on 19 Sep 2000

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