Does God Play Dice?: The Mathematics of Chaos - Softcover

Stewart, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557861064 ISBN 13: 9781557861061

Verlag: Blackwell Publishers, 1990

Inhaltsangabe

very good secondhand copy, Previous owners name sticker on half title page, some light fore edge soiling and curl to corners.

Über diesen Titel

Reseña del editor

"Does God Play Dice?" Yes, but how? Einstein did not believe that "God Plays Dice". He laid the foundations for today's thinking that the universe is governed by the immutable laws of physics - there is no room for chance, but these foundations may be built on sand. The science of chaos is forcing scientists to rethink even the most fundamental ideas about the way in which the universe behaves. Chaos thoery has already shown that the systems obeying precise laws can nevertheless act in a random manner. Perhaps God does play dice, within a cosmic game of complete law and order. This volume explains the contemporary theories of systems that obey simple laws but which are neither constant nor predictable. Ian Stewart reveals a strange universe. A universe in which nothing may be as it seems, where familiar geometrical shapes such as circles and ellipses give way to infinitely complex structures known as "fractals". He explains how the fluttering of a butterfly's wings can change the weather and how the gravitational attraction of a creature in a distant galaxy can change the fate of the solar system. This text tells the story of this science and the implications chaos has for notions of predictability and the verification of scientific theories. Chaos is a whole world of ideas and possibilities, a kind of matementics, a fundamental insight into nature itself and it brings us closer to an understanding of literally everything.

Biografía del autor

Ian Stewart is a Reader in Mathematics at the University of Warwick, where the subjects he has taught include the history of mathematcs, mathematics as culture, set and group theory, topology, applied sources of pure mathematics, and catastrophe theory. He has held visiting posts as a fellow and professor at Tubingen, Auckland, Storrs, Carbondale, and Houston Universities, and has lectured widely in Britain, Europe and North America. Besides his numerous scholarly publications his writings include Oh! Catastrophe, The Fractal Dimension and The Groups of Wrath (all first published in France), The Problems of Mathematics, science fiction stories (among them, The Microbotic Revolution) and articles in Scientific American, Nature, Pour la science, New Scientist, Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian. He is European editor of the Mathematical Intelligencer, and has worked in radio and TV.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Blackwell Publishers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1990
• ISBN 10: 1557861064
• ISBN 13: 9781557861061
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 360