What Gleick presents is a tale of discovery, emphasizing individual achievements, and on that level his book is a very good read. In his treatment, the borderline between mathematics and real systems becomes blurred, to say the least, while the mathematical content of the new developments remains somewhat obscure. His claim that chaos theory is the new paradigm for science should, at least at this stage, be viewed with considerable caution. Gleick’s book, for example, asserts such connections far too glibly, glossing over the complex relations between theory, model and real system. Moreover, the connection between the mathematical formalism of chaos theory and events in the real world is considerably more problematic than is often implied in general expositions. While not without precedent, this is an unusual situation for a subject that is concerned first and foremost with developments in mathematics, some of which are, in fact, of fairly mature vintage. footnote 3 Terms from chaos theory, such as ‘butterfly effect’ and ‘strange attractor’, have entered the common vocabulary, though not always used very precisely. Science writer James Gleick’s book on the subject has become a bestseller, footnote 2 there have been numerous articles in the general press and programmes on television, and New Scientist ran an extensive series of weekly articles on the relevance of chaos theory to a range of disciplines. T here is currently a great deal of excitement about the notion of chaos. QPBC alternate.It is difficult for professional scientists, much less the general public, to distinguish excessive hype from solid scientific achievement. 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. 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. ""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. 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.
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