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Original Essays | November 5, 2009

John Buntin: IMG Notes from the (Bibliographic) Underground

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For more than 60 years, Los Angeles's origins, its underbelly, and (yes) its blondes have fueled the imagination of writers and directors from... Continue »
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    L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

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Chaos: Making a New Science

by James Gleick

Chaos: Making a New Science Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Chaos records the birth of a new science. This new science offers a way of seeing order and pattern where formerly only the random, the erratic, the unpredictable – in short, the chaotic – had been observed.

Chaos is a history of discovery. It chronicles, in the words of the scientists themselves, their conflicts and frustrations, their emotions and moments of revelation. After reading Chaos, you will never look at the world in quite the same way again.

Book News Annotation:

Reissue of the 1987 Viking ed.
Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Synopsis:

James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the twentieth century's third revolution. 8 pages of photos.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
demelzack, March 29, 2009 (view all comments by demelzack)
I didn’t before but after reading this book I believe in chaos. (Not just the book but the phenomenon.) It helped me shed some light on my views on determinism and free will after reading it. And I don’t have a physics background but I was still able to understand it. I’ll never look at the world the same way. If you liked The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene you’ll love this.
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billyrhea, October 5, 2007 (view all comments by billyrhea)
James Gleick's early history of the science of chaos is a thorough and personal account compiled from hours of interviews, articles and lectures. Chaos has been perhaps a somewhat controversial term in science and maybe is better described as the process of complexity forming out of simplicity or self-organizion emerging from apparent randomness. The simple, mechanistic way of viewing the world as deterministic, static and linear no longer holds water. In other words, systems are not clocklike machines destined to run down into a lifeless eternity, but rather evolve through time into more beautiful and complex patterns. Time can be viewed as a process, rather than a series of intervals. Rather than directly couching such philosophical questions and coming up with conclusions, Gleick lets the reader think for themselves. This book is a fantastic introduction for those with the patience for scientific terms and interest in scientific history. For the less scientifically inclined a more general, great introduction on the subject is a book called the Turbulent Mirror, by John Briggs and F. David Peat.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780140092509
Subtitle:
Making a New Science
performance:
Gleick, James
Author:
Gleick, James
Author:
Gleick
Publisher:
Penguin Books
Location:
New York, N.Y., U.S.A. :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Science
Subject:
Physics
Subject:
System Theory
Subject:
Chaotic Behavior in Systems
Subject:
Mathematical Physics
Copyright:
c198
Edition Description:
Bibliography: p. 318-340.
Series Volume:
no. 84
Publication Date:
December 1988
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
352
Dimensions:
9.00x5.95x.96 in. 1.03 lbs.
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