Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Chaos: Making a New Science

  • ISBN13: 9780143113454
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
The study of chaotic systems has become a major scientific pursuit in recent years, shedding light on the apparently random behaviour observed in fields as diverse as climatology and mechanics. InThe Essence of Chaos Edward Lorenz, one of the founding fathers of Chaos and the originator of its seminal concept of the Butterfly Effect, presents his own landscape of our current understanding of the field.
Lorenz presents everyday examples of chaotic behaviour, such as the toss of a coin, the pinball's path, the fall of a leaf, and explains in elementary mathematical strms how their essentially chaotic nature can be understood. His principal example involved the construction of a model of a board slid! ing down a ski slope. Through this model Lorenz illustrates chaotic phenomena and the related concepts of bifurcation and strange attractors. He also provides the context in which chaos can be related to the similarly emergent fields of nonlinearity, complexity and fractals.
As an early pioneer of chaos, Lorenz also provides his own story of the human endeavour in developing this new field. He describes his initial encounters with chaos through his study of climate and introduces many of the personalities who contributed early breakthroughs. His seminal paper, "Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wing in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" is published for the first time.CHAOS THEORY - DVD MovieRyan Reynolds’ exceptional performance as an efficiency expert off his game is the best reason to see Chaos Theory, a drama-comedy full of surprises. Reynolds plays Frank, a compulsive list-maker and paragon of punctuality who gets behind schedule one day by a mere ten minutes! and watches his world fall down around him. Arriving late for! one of his own seminars, the rattled Frank becomes vulnerable to a serial seducer (Sarah Chalke) of married men, and drawn into a baby-delivery emergency. The ensuing confusion causes a rift between Frank and his suspicious wife (Emily Mortimer), which is nothing compared to what happens after Frank--trying to resolve his problems--discovers he’s not the father of his daughter, Jesse (Elisabeth Harnois). Daniel Taplitz’s screenplay feels a little random in its first act, though there is a lot to enjoy, particularly a preface that finds Frank around age 50, a wily observer of human nature advising his future son-in-law on how to survive tough times in marriage. (The film’s story proper is actually told in flashback.) Reynolds co-stars, including Stuart Townsend as Frank’s best friend, are all very good. But Reynolds has lately been perfecting such rising-toward-clarity roles as Frank (see also The Nines), and he is superb at conveying competing emotions under extreme ! stress. Equally ludicrous and sympathetic, Frank gives Chaos Theory an absurdist soul. --Tom KeoghThe twentieth-anniversary edition of the million-copy-plus Bestseller

THIS EDITION of James Gleick’s groundbreaking bestseller introduces to a whole new readership the story of one of the most significant waves of scientific knowledge in our time. By focusing on the key figures whose genius converged to chart an innovative direction for science, Gleick makes the story of chaos theory not only fascinating but also accessible, and opens our eyes to a surprising new view of the universe.

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