What a head-trip! While the Pearly Gates of Paradise may be more than a few minutes away, you are almost certain to enjoy the journey with this book in hand. I purchased this book from Amazon back in 2002 and apart from the curling cellophane-coated front cover, I have nothing but praise for it. It simply gets better, every single time I read it - not unlike sipping some fine vintage even as it ages.
It must be difficult to write a book on a subject so intrinsically mathematical while retaining a healthy, comprehensible tone with a twist of the ridiculous. Schroeder has an enviable sense of comic timing in addition to his peculiarly personalized insight into the world of Number Theory. It is pretty amazing, considering the broad and variable scope of his exposition that the entire opus did not descend into an inexorable chaotic mess of formulae. He skillfully manages to avoid the quagmire of complexity by properly abbreviating lengthy explanations with diagrams, pretty color prints and even the occasional cartoon aside. This leaves him enough time for the most engaging (not to mention informative) anecdotes which allows him to bring the reader into certain obscure fields of research - bilingual poetry, cheating at roulette and on how to kill Germans with Gift(s) - so to speak.
Do not be fooled by the casual tone of the book because this is anything but a cursory tour. In fact, if this is your first encounter with Chaos and Fractals, it may be better to have more than one supplementary text at hand. (I suggest Peitgen, Jurgens and Saupe's
Chaos and Fractals: New Frontiers of Science
.) Schroeder's book is written for serious students, who want to see some practical (and sometimes not-so-practical) applications of what were once mere mathematical monstrosities. Neither Weierstrass nor Cantor could have predicted that their little monsters would turn out to dominate the physical world. This book gives you an insightful look at how far non-differentiable functions have come since those early pioneering days.
Go ahead and buy this book. It is what every scientific book should aspire to be - brilliant and funny (exactly in that order!)
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4.3 out of 5
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Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2002
Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2015
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2020
Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2017
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2010
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2003
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2013
Top reviews from other countries
Nicolas Ives
Não é um livro didático sobre fractais, mas uma grande coleção de artigos sobre o assunto
Reviewed in Brazil on November 18, 2018
Laurie-Eve Laroche
Nice vintage second hand copy of the book
Reviewed in Canada on July 4, 2020Nile
Jam-pack of disconnected facts published 20 years ago.
Reviewed in Canada on December 11, 2011