Chaos
You've heard of the butterfly effect? Fractals, strange attractors, and all that.
The million-copy New York Times bestseller and finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award that reveals the science behind chaos theory
This 20th-anniversary edition of James Gleick’s groundbreaking bestseller Chaos introduces a whole new readership to chaos theory, one of the most significant waves of scientific knowledge in our time. From Edward Lorenz’s discovery of the Butterfly Effect, to Mitchell Feigenbaum’s calculation of a universal constant, to Benoit Mandelbrot’s concept of fractals, which created a new geometry of nature, Gleick’s engaging narrative focuses on the key figures whose genius converged to chart an innovative direction for science. In Chaos, Gleick makes the story of chaos theory not only fascinating but also accessible to beginners, and opens our eyes to a surprising new view of the universe.
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“An awe-inspiring book. Reading it gave me that sensation that someone had just found the light switch.” Douglas Adams
“Chaos is the first book since Baby Beluga where I've gotten to the last page and immediately started reading it over again from the front: I've found this to be the most influential book in my thinking about science since college.” Robert Sapolsky
“One marvels at the amount of legwork that Gleick has done. He seems to have visited everyone in the world who's worked on chaos theory, and his footnotes make reference to every key chaos publication right up through 1987. Gleick's Chaos is a feast, a packed book that will repay many hours of study.” Rudy Rucker, The Washington Post
“A taut and exciting account of how this field of study has emerged within the past 20 years from a ragbag of unsolved and often shamefully neglected problems in science and mathematics. His account is an explanation of chaos hung on a framework of the brief history of the field, but it is also deliberately a fascinating illustration of how the pattern of science changes.” John Maddox, The New York Times