Chaos : Making a New Science

The “highly entertaining” New York Times bestseller, which explains chaos theory and the butterfly effect, from the author of The Information ( Chicago Tribune ). For centuries, scientific thought was focused on bringing order to the natural world. But even as relativity and quantum mechanics undermined that rigid certainty in the first half of the twentieth century, the scientific community clung to the idea that any system, no matter how complex, could be reduced to a simple pattern. In the 1960s, a small group of radical thinkers began to take that notion apart, placing new importance on the tiny experimental irregularities that scientists had long learned to ignore. Miniscule differences in data, they said, would eventually produce massive ones—and complex systems like the weather, economics, and human behavior suddenly became clearer and more beautiful than they had ever been before. In this seminal work of scientific writing, James Gleick lays out a cutting edge field of science with enough grace and precision that any reader will be able to grasp the science behind the beautiful complexity of the world around us. With more than a million copies sold, Chaos is “a groundbreaking book about what seems to be the future of physics” by a writer who has been a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the author of Time Travel: A History and Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman ( Publishers Weekly ).

the 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.

publishers Weekly

science Readers Who Have Gone Through Relativity Theory, Quantum Physics, Heisenbergian Uncertainty, Black Holes And The World Of Quarks And Virtual Particles Only To Be Stunned By Recent Grand Unified Theories (guts) Will Welcome New York Times Science Writer Gleick's Adventurous Attempt To Describe The Revolutionary Science Of Chaos. ``chaos'' Is What A Handful Of Theorists Steeped In Math And Computer Know-how Are Calling Their Challengingly Abstract New Look At Nature In Terms Of Nonlinear Dynamics. Gleick Traces The Ideas Of These Little-known Pioneersincluding Mitchell Feigenbaum And His Butterfly Effect; Benoit Mandelbrot, Whose ``fractal'' Concept Led To A New Geometry Of Nature; And Joseph Ford Who Countered Einstein With ``god Plays Dice With The Universe. But They're Loaded Dice.'' Chaos Is Deep, Even Frightening In Its Holistic Embrace Of Nature As Paradoxically Complex, Wildly Disorderly, Random And Yet Stable In Its Infinite Stream Of ``self-similarities.'' A Ground-breaking Book About What Seems To Be The Future Of Physics. Illustrations. Qpbc Alternate. (october 20)

The blockbuster modern science classic that introduced the butterfly effect to the world & mdash;even more relevant two decades after it became an international sensation For centuries, scientific thought was focused on bringing order to the natural world. But even as relativity and quantum mechanics undermined that rigid certainty in the first half of the twentieth century, the scientific community clung to the idea that any system, no matter how complex, could be reduced to a simple pattern. In the 1960s, a small group of radical thinkers began to take that notion apart, placing new importance on the tiny experimental irregularities that scientists had long learned to ignore. Miniscule differences in data, they said, would eventually produce massive ones & mdash;and complex systems like the weather, economics, and human behavior suddenly became clearer and more beautiful than they had ever been before. In this seminal work of scientific writing, James Gleick lays out a cutting edge field of science with enough grace and precision that any reader will be able to grasp the science behind the beautiful complexity of the world around us The author describes how scientists studying the growth of complexity in nature are discovering order and pattern in chaos. He explains concepts such as nonlinearity, the Butterfly Effect, universal constants, fractals, and strange attractors, and examines the work of scientists such as Mitchell J. Feigenbaum, Edward Lorenz, and Benoit Mandelbrot. "Seemingly unrelated kinds of irregularity take on a new meaning when understood in terms of chaos theory. In Chaos ... James Gleick reveals the science and the scientists behind chaos, telling the story of one of the most significant new waves of scientific knowledge in our time."--Cover