The Chaos Hypertextbook - Mathematics in the Age of the Computer

Author(s) : Glenn Elert
Publication Date : 2005

Book excerpts:

In the 1980s, strange new mathematical concepts burst forth from academic isolation to seize the attention of the public. Chaos. A fantastic notion. The study of the uncontainable, the unpredictable, the bizarre. Fractals. Curves and surfaces unlike anything ever seen in mathematics before. At first, one might think that these topics are beyond the comprehension of all but the smartest, most educated, and most specialized geniuses. It turned out that chaos, fractals, and the related topic of dimension are really not that difficult. One can devote an academic lifetime to them, of course, but the basic introduction presented in this book is no more difficult to understand than the straight line and the parabola.

Some of the topics discussed in this book have roots extending back to the close of the Nineteenth Century. But the really flashy stuff had to wait until integrated circuits integrated themselves into daily life. The real beauties of this concept are the colors, patterns, details, and motions at a level beyond line drawings on paper. This is when we need computers, lots of them, to reproduce every image, movie, and data set found in this book. This is mathematics in the age of the computer.

Intended Audience:

This book is for anyone with an interest in chaos, fractals, non-linear dynamics, or mathematics in general. While it's a moderately heavy piece of work, requiring a bit of mathematical knowledge, it is definitely not aimed at mathematicians. People who enjoy math as a diversion are the ones this book was written for.

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