Introduction to the Modern Theory of Dynamical Systems (Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications) [Paperback]

Anatole Katok (Author), Boris Hasselblatt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521575575 | ISBN-13: 978-0521575577 | Publication Date: December 28, 1996 | Edition: 1

This book provides a self-contained comprehensive exposition of the theory of dynamical systems. The book begins with a discussion of several elementary but crucial examples. These are used to formulate a program for the general study of asymptotic properties and to introduce the principal theoretical concepts and methods. The main theme of the second part of the book is the interplay between local analysis near individual orbits and the global complexity of the orbit structure. The third and fourth parts develop the theories of low-dimensional dynamical systems and hyperbolic dynamical systems in depth. The book is aimed at students and researchers in mathematics at all levels from advanced undergraduate and up.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...well written and clear...a valuable reference for engineers and mechanicians." H.W. Haslach Jr., Applied Mechanics Reviews

"The book is a pleasure to read." Edoh Amiran, Mathematical Reviews

"The notes section at the end of the book is complete and quite helpful. There are hints and answers provided for a good percentage of the problems in the book. The problems range from fairly straightforward ones to results that I remember reading in research papers over the last 10-20 years....I recommend the text as an exceptional reference..." Richard Swanson, SIAM Review

Book Description

Beginning with a discussion of several elementary but crucial examples, this study provides a self-contained comprehensive exposition of the theory of dynamical systems. It is aimed at students and researchers in mathematics at all levels from advanced undergraduate and up.

Product Details

• Paperback: 824 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (December 28, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521575575
• ISBN-13: 978-0521575577
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #813,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent rigorous introduction to chaotic dynamical system, April 17, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Introduction to the Modern Theory of Dynamical Systems (Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications) (Paperback)

This remarkable book is by far the best rigorous introduction to many facets of the modern theory of (chaotic) dynamical systems. It introduces and rigorously develops the central concepts and methods in dynamical systems in a hands-on and highly insightful fashion. The authors are world experts in smooth dynamical systems and have played a major role in the development of the modern theory and this shows througout the book.

The book starts with a comprehensive discussion of a series of elementary but fundamental examples. These examples are used to formulate the general program of the study of asymptotic properties as well as to introduce the principal notions (differentiable and topological equivalence, moduli, asymptotic orbit growth, entropies, ergodicity, etc.) and, in a simplified way, a number of important methods (fixed point methods, coding, KAM-type Newton method, local normal forms, etc.). This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

The main theme of the second part is the interplay between local analysis near individual (e.g., periodic) orbits and the global complexity of the orbit structure. This is achieved by exploring hyperbolicity, transversality, global topological invariants, and variational methods. The methods include study of stable and unstable manifolds, bifurcations, index and degree, and construction of orbits as minima and minimaxes of action functionals.

In the third and fourth part the general program is carried out for low-dimensional and hyperbolic dynamical systems which are particularly amenable to such analysis. In addition these systems have interesting particular properties. For hyperbolic systems there are structural stability, theory of equilibrium (Gibbs) measures, and asymptotic distribution of periodic orbits, in low-dimensional dynamical systems classical Poincare-Denjoy theory, and Poincare-Bendixson theories are presented as well as more recent developments, including the theory of twist maps, interval exchange transformations and noninvertible interval maps.

This book should be on the desk (not bookshelf!) of any serious student of dynamical systems or any mathematically sophisticated scientist or engineer interested in using tools and paradigms of dynamical systems to model or study nonlinear systems.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, advanced intro to dynamical systems, December 19, 2003

By 

David Elder "elddm" (Boston, Ma United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Introduction to the Modern Theory of Dynamical Systems (Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications) (Paperback)

This is really one of the very best books on dynamical systems available today. Nearly every topic in modern dynamical systems is treated in detail. The authors have provided many important comments and historical notes on the material presented in the main text. The writing is clear and the many topics discussed are given appropriate motivation and background.

There are only two potential drawbacks. First, the prerequisites for this book are quite high. The reader should be familiar with real and functional analysis, differential geometry, topology, and measure theory, for starters. Fortunately a well-organized appendix collects the key results of each of the branches of math for the reader's reference. Second, many dynamical systems of interest to applied mathematicians, scientists, and engineers arise from differential equations. This book does not discuss in much detail the connection between ODEs and continuous dynamical systems. Other books (e.g. Perko) treat this connection more thoroughly.

For completeness, clarity, and rigor, Katok and Hasselblatt is without equal. If you work in dynamical systems, you should definitely have this excellent text on your bookshelf. Highly recommended.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book with lots of detail, May 16, 2001

By 

Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Introduction to the Modern Theory of Dynamical Systems (Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications) (Paperback)

This book is a comprehensive overview of modern dynamical systems that covers the major areas. The authors begin with an overview of the main areas of dynamics: ergodic theory, where the emphasis is on measure and information theory; topological dynamics, where the phase space is a topological space and the "flows" are continuous transformations on these spaces; differentiable dynamics where the phase space is a smooth manifold and the flows are one-parameter groups of diffeomorphisms; and Hamiltonian dynamics, which is the most physical and generalizes classical mechanics. Noticeably missing in the list of references for individuals contributing to these areas are Churchill, Pecelli, and Rod, who have done interesting work in the area of both topological and Hamiltonian mechanics. No doubt size and time constraints forced the authors to make major omissions in an already sizable book.

Some elementary examples of dynamical systems are given in the first chapter, including definitions of the more important concepts such as topological transitivity and gradient flows. The authors are careful to distinguish between topologically mixing and topological transitivity. This (subtle) difference is sometimes not clear in other books. Symbolic dynamics, so important in the study of dynamical systems, is also treated in detail.

The classification of dynamical systems is begun in Chapter 2, with equivalence under conjugacy and semi-conjugacy defined and characterized. The very important Smale horseshoe map and the construction of Markov partitions are discussed. The authors are careful to distinguish the orbit structure of flows from the case in discrete-time systems.

Chapter 3 moves on to the characterization of the asymptotic behavior of smooth dynamical systems. This is done with a detailed introduction to the zeta-function and topological entropy. In symbolic dynamics, the topological entropy is known to be uncomputable for some dynamical systems (such as cellular automata), but this is not discussed here. The discussion of the algebraic entropy of the fundamental group is particularly illuminating.

Measure and ergodic theory are introduced in the following chapter. Detailed proofs are given of most of the results, and it is good to see that the authors have chosen to include a discussion of Hamiltonian systems, so important to physical applications.

The existence of invariant measures for smooth dynamical systems follows in the next chapter with a good introduction to Lagrangian mechanics.

Part 2 of the book is a rigorous overview of hyperbolicity with a very insightful discussion of stable and unstable manifolds. Homoclinicity and the horseshoe map are also discussed, and even though these constructions are not useful in practical applications, an in-depth understanding of them is important for gaining insight as to the behavior of chaotic dynamical systems. Also, a very good discussion of Morse theory is given in this part in the context of the variational theory of dynamics.

The third part of the book covers the important area of low dimensional dynamics. The authors motivate the subject well, explaining the need for using low dimensional dynamics to gain an intuition in higher dimensions. The examples given are helpful to those who might be interested in the quantization of dynamical systems, as the number-theoretic constructions employed by the author are similar to those used in "quantum chaos" studies. Knot theorists will appreciate the discussion on kneading theory.

The authors return to the subject of hyperbolic dynamical systems in the last part of the book. The discussion is very rigorous and very well-written, especially the sections on shadowing and equilibrium states. The shadowing results have been misused in the literature, with many false statements about their applicability. The shadowing theorem is proved along with the structural stability theorem.

The authors give a supplement to the book on Pesin theory. The details of Pesin theory are usually time-consuming to get through, but the authors do a good job of explaining the main ideas. The multiplicative ergodic theorem is proved, and this is nice since the proof in the literature is difficult.