Chaos: Making a New Science (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Publishers Weekly

Gleick here adventurously attempts to describe the revolutionary science of "chaos," a challengingly abstract new look at nature in terms of nonlinear dynamics. "A ground-breaking book about what seems to be the future of physics," praised PW. Illustrated. 100,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (December 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140092501
• ISBN-13: 978-0747404132
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (110 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #190,951 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #63 in	Books > Science > Physics > Chaos & Systems
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but not terribly deep, September 2, 1999

By	P. Lozar "plozar" (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I read this book when it was first published, and it was the beginning of a journey that led me to my present job (at a Santa Fe Institute spinoff company), so I must admit to feeling a debt of gratitude to Gleick! He writes engagingly about the people who founded "chaos theory" and explains their discoveries in easy-to-understand terms -- other "popular science" works (e.g., "Goedel, Escher, Bach") from the same era were beyond me mathematically, but I feel that Gleick gave me a clear and accurate sense of what the theory was all about. On the other hand, he seems to focus too much on the "who" and not the "what" of chaos theory, a habit that, unfortunately, has persisted in other authors' books on the subject -- granted, some amazing "characters" work in the field, but I think emphasizing their eccentricity detracts from the solid science they're doing and the real-life applicability of the theory. To me, the best overall introduction to this subject is Mitchell Waldrop's "Complexity"; Gleick deserves credit for piquing everyone's interest, but this book is, to my mind, only an appetizer.

53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Science Meets Nature, August 1, 2004

By	Jason D. Enochs "army_tacsat" (Armed Forces Europe) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Have you ever wondered why a leaf or tree is shaped the way it is? Can science explain the seemingly randomness of nature? This book will make your imagination run wild. Pure science meets Mother Nature. I would read from this book each night before I went to bed and then just dream about the possibilities. This is one of the most thought provoking books I have ever read. I grab this book off the shelf at least once a month and just thumb through it again to revisit some of the ideas. His explanation and discussions about nonlinear dynamics were very eye opening for me. The author also did a great job of providing a brief background of each scientific breakthrough along the way. This provided allot of additional and interesting facts that directly contributed to ones understanding.

You don't have to be a genius to comprehend and enjoy this book. Some of the reviews for this book complain about there not being enough math to support the theory. The lack of advanced math made this book even more enjoyable for me. The average person will appreciate this book just as much as anyone else.

This book also has some very nice full color illustrations. Nothing was spared for this book. You won't be disappointed.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Achieves its goal - even after 18 years, July 12, 2005

By	David Schaich "David Schaich" (Cambridge, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I first picked up Gleick's "Chaos" I was a little skeptical - could a book written in 1987 still work as an introduction to chaos and nonlinear dynamics, a field that has been evolving rapidly for the past eighteen years? Well, in a certain sense, it turns out it can.

The truth is that the focus of Gleick's book is not so much chaos itself as it is the people who first explored chaos theory and eventually managed to make it respectable and bring it into the mainstream. As the book's subtitle hints, Gleick is concerned mainly with how a 'new science' is 'made', not necessarily with the actual science or math involved. This was not quite what I was expecting from "Chaos", but it is actually an advantage for the book, since its age becomes somewhat irrelevant: although chaos theory itself has been growing and evolving dramatically in recent decades, "Chaos" deals only with its roots in the '60s, '70s and early '80s. On the other hand, I was hoping for more discussion of the science itself, rather than the personalities involved in its early development.

I was also not that taken with the style of Gleick's writing. His narrative tends to jump around rapidly, often spending only a few pages on some person or event before moving on to another, commonly with little in the way of connection or logical transition. This is fine for short articles in newspapers and magazines, but it doesn't work so well in a 300+ page book. The vast cast of characters (meteorologists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, biologists, ecologists and many others) spins in and out of view, and it can be very difficult to get more than a general impression how the little pieces all fit together in the big picture.

However, even though I'm complaining about the content and presentation, I'm still giving "Chaos" four stars. This is because "Chaos" managed to get me interested in and excited about nonlinear dynamics. Gleick was able to convey the sense of wonder and excitement that comes from looking at nature in a new way, through the lens of nonlinearity. He successfully presented the making of this new science as the greatest and most exciting scientific revolution since the development of quantum mechanics - with the difference that chaos is more accessible, more understandable, and applicable in a far wider range of fields.

In short, "Chaos" still achieves its goal 18 years after it was written. It gets the reader (this reader, at least) interested in and excited about nonlinear dynamics and eager to explore the topic in greater depth. Reading Gleick's book inspired me to pick up a copy of Robert Hilborn's "Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics" from the library and take a more serious look at the science itself. "Chaos" should make a good read for anyone who knows little or nothing about chaos or nonlinear dynamics but is curious about the topic and interested in learning a bit about its early development.