Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick (PDF)

Description

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).

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐When I walk along the streets on a fine day, I see clouds and trees and the boundaries formed by blue skies and mountains. And also, I see buildings. After I read this book, I enjoy walking even more. The images of man-made structures are composed of regular shapes like lines, rectangles, and circles. But the images of nature seem to be fundamentally different. The shapes of nature are irregular and far more diverse, and are also more beautiful. The waves at the sea shore and the sounds of seagull purify and heal my mind. What makes nature so special that man cannot imitate it perfectly? Chaos theory can give an answer for the question. It claims the following:When a complex system in nature evolves in time, it does according to universal rules.For examples, consider a jellyfish and the ink dropping in water. Although one is a living being and the other is not, about shapes, they are quite similar. The lightening paths and the shapes of some trees are also such examples. The universal rules have some features breaking the common sense.1. Simple and determined (in every detail) systems can behave in an extremely complicated way, apparently random and almost unpredictable.2. Different systems can behave in the same way, caring not at all for the details of a system’s constituent atoms.3. Butterfly effect: small change in initial condition can give rise to qualitatively different results.Moreover, if we try to analyze the complex system using geometry, then we come to encounter fractal geometry, not ordinary Euclidean geometry in which main objects are lines, rectangles, and circles. Shapes in fractal geometry again resemble shapes in natural phenomenon like clouds, trees, sea shore, etc. Chaos theory is really charming.Chaos theory emerged around 1960s. The meteorologist Edward Lorentz is recognized as the father of this theory. He found the butterfly effect and investigated the problem of how far aperiodicity is responsible for unpredictability. The author, James Gleick, successfully teaches us what chaos theory is. As a journalist, he interviewed many original inventors of chaos theory. Beyond simply listing materials from chaos references and interviews with inventors, he wrote another great book about chaos. Almost half of the story is about mathematics. Reading the book, I felt ashamed when I found that he fully understand modern mathematics although he is not a professional mathematician. Now, I want to say about some bad points of the book. In several places, its explanation is vague. For example, the author explains the work of Barnsley through several pages. He does it with comparison to the game of throwing coins. But even though I could understand the analogy, I couldn’t understand anything of the work of Barnsley. There are several places like that. I think it’s because the author tried to contain as much contents as possible in an appropriate sized book. Another example of vagueness is about turbulence. Turbulence is regarded as one of the most difficult problems in physics before the chaos theory emerges. The effort to understand turbulence was one of the major impetuses that produced chaos theory. The book describes how chaos theory contributed to understand turbulence. But even though I finished the book, I couldn’t understand in what concrete sense – by concreteness I mean clarity of explanation accessible to general audience – chaos theory were helpful. But the bad points are few compared with the merits of the book. It deals with almost all major inventors and historical events in the early history of chaos theory so that readers, after reading the book, may safely say they learned a lot about chaos theory. That’s a good point. For example, the following were really new ideas to me:1. Chaotic aspects of a living organism can serve as self-defending system.2. Some sudden irregular movement of organism of eye muscles and sudden blockage of blood vessels possibly happen without any external reason, but with only its internal rule of movements.3. Mode locking phenomenon: I am not sure that this is also a chaos phenomenon. Some firefly congregates in trees during mating periods, thousands at one time, blinking in a fantastic harmony. A radio receiver to lock in on signals even when there are small fluctuations in their frequency. Moon always faces the earth.4. Renormalization theory: In particle physics, when we compute equations according to old quantum mechanics, many times we encounter infinity. In nature, every quantity must be finite. So this is absurd. Renormalization is a technique developed from 1940s to 1970s to avoid this problem. After reading the book, I come to know that renormalization is closely related to chaos theory.If you read the book, you will find great intellectual amazement. I can guarantee you that the amazement will exceed that of when you first learn relativity or quantum mechanics.

⭐I was prepared to hate this book, and it sat on my Kindle for about a year before I finally read it. I am an Electrical Engineer, a group not normally enamored with mathematicians, since Engineering is, almost by definition, the avoidance of pure math.I ended up loving the book. Probably proof right there that Chaos exists.While the book is certainly “technical”, it is well within the range of anyone who is not afraid of math and willing to spend a little time considering what it says. I ended up spending about a week or so reading the book, a long time for me, because it takes time to digest some of the material and understand what it is saying.A very good example is Gleick’s discussion of a common mathematical formula x(next)=rx(1-x). This formula, where R is a constant governs many common phenomena, including biological populations. (r is a constant, and x represents a level of population from 0 to 1). Just looking at the equation, you would expect it to be fairly well behaved, probably some sort of exponential or sinusoidal looking function with a nice regular period to it. In fact, as Gleick suggests, if you spend a few minutes playing with the equation in a spreadsheet, you see that it is anything but a neat, orderly function. Depending on the starting conditions and the value of the constant (scaling function R) that you use, the graph takes on numerous random shapes.In other words, even for populations with can be modeled with a simple formula, the math predicts that there will be occasional booms and crashes INDEPENDENT of any external influences. To put it another way, bald eagle populations might crash every once in a while, seemingly at random, whether anyone invents DDT or not- just because of the chaotic nature of how the universe works. (I am not trying to defend DDT, just using it as an example).I found this to be a startling revelation. It certainly goes against my engineering mindset, where things work the way they do, first time, every time, and randomness is really caused by some error or external force you don’t quite understand. Chaos theory proposes that randomness is inherent in nature, and even the most carefully controlled conditions may result in unexpected results.No doubt Gleick has just scratched the surface, and watered down the math to the point where an average person could have a glimpse of concepts that trained mathematicians spend their careers on. From that standpoint, the book is a success. I walked away with an understanding of what chaos really means, how it influences real-world events, and why those fractal images aren’t just pretty pictures, but actually have real meaning.The only criticisms I have of the book are its attempt to relate chaos and the works of philosophers (Goethe) and artists. While I am sure there is a high-level connection to be made, I found the comparisons tedious. Also, because the book is a very limited overview, it can get a little jumpy and choppy. It is really more of a series of essays than a complete narrative. Finally, in some cases I found the mathematical simplifications overdone, and it took a while to realize what Gleick was talking about simply because it was so oversimplified.All that said, I enjoyed the book, learned something, and walked away with at least a slight understanding of what all the chaos fuss is about. If you are at all interested in how the world works, some of the ideas put forward will amaze you. And while chaos theory is very much about the math behind it, don’t let is scare you off. If you understood the first chapter of your algebra book, you are well on your way.

⭐If you’re interested in chaos and want to learn from a slightly less technical perspective. This is a great read. It’s well structured and fun. It’s also a great addition for technical readers as a secondary source for information.

⭐I’m not sure if I’m just too stupid but this book is so difficult to read. The concepts are not difficult to understand, but the way its written it so (ironically) chaotic that its so difficult to understand what the heck James Gleick is trying to say. It’s not difficult to understand the jist behind things like Chaos Theory and Non-Linear Dynamics – I fully understand what this is. But the way James explains the experiments and the concepts are so goddam awful that I ended up having to do internet research – it took 2 lines from the opening paragraph of Wikipedia to summarise everything James said in some entire chapters. I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because I appreciate him introducing the words to me. But thats all he did, introduce the words, I had to understand the concepts, the people behind the experiments and the experiments myself via internet research (and it took FAR FAR FAR FAR less time understanding things from a Wikipedia article or YouTube video which go into MUCH more depth too).

⭐This is not a text book on chaos theory, but rather a history of the study of chaos theory. The author tries hard to make it attractive for the general reader, with pages of anecdotes about the odd characters who developed the subject, but by about half way through I started to find that irritating and began asking ‘where’s the beef’.To make sense of the book the reader needs a basic knowledge of calculus, differential equations and imaginary numbers, at least up to A level standard. It desperately needs a glossary, and it would also help to have a timeline with brief explanations about who contributed what to the study. My background is in engineering so I found myself asking what were the applications of the various strands of the theory, something a pure mathematician would never do.I started out knowing little about chaos theory, and ended up still not able to say that I understood it, but having reached the Rumsfeld status of ‘known unknowns’, I now know what it is I don’t know, and am hungry to learn more.

⭐I am a bit biased in that I find this topic fascinating but ignoring that this book is very accessible, you don’t need to be qualified in maths to enjoy it! It is wide ranging and covers all the basic topics without muddying the waters with too much detail. It’s really not so scary, so what have you got to lose? Give it a go! You may even find yourself inspired to take your interest further like I am about to!!

⭐This book is an accessible introduction to chaos, with good illustrations. It is little heavy on biographical detail, but that is a personal preference. I noticed a mistake in the one piece of complex arithmetic, but anyone interested will see it too so there shouldn’t be a problem.I do recommend this for anyone wondering why weather forecasting, climate predictions and financial forecasting seems to defy all the measurements and computing power thrown at them.

⭐Der Titel “Chaos: The Making of a New Science” verhieß eine Menge – und hielt wenig. So könnte man meine Bewertung gleich zusammenfassen.Gleick gelingt es nicht zu erklären, was “Chaos” ist, sondern er redet ständig drumrum. Die Chaostheorie als solche wird nicht erläutert, dafür findet ein nerviges “name dropping” statt, es werden etliche bekannte Namen genannt, aber ohne echte Zusammenhänge zu erklären. Das geht einher mit einer unwissenschaftlichen Sprache, die man auch bei einem populärwissenschaftlichen Buch erwarten würde und könnte.Fazit: Schade, aber dafür kann ich nach langem Nachdenken nur einen Stern vergeben. Keine Empfehlung von mir.

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