The Nonlinear Universe: Chaos, Emergence, Life [Hardcover]

Written in Alwyn Scotts inimitable style, one that readers will find both lucid and accessible, this masterwork elucidates the explosion of activity in nonlinear science in recent decades. The book explains the wide-ranging implications of nonlinear phenomena for future developments in many areas of modern science, including mathematics, physics, engineering, chemistry, biology, and neuroscience. Arguably as important as quantum theory, modern nonlinear science is essential for understanding the scientific developments of the twenty-first century.

It has been suggested that the big questions of science are answered  that science has entered a twilight age where all the important knowledge is known and only the details need mopping up. And yet, the unprecedented progress in science and technology in the twentieth century has raised qu- tions that werent conceived of a century ago. This book argues that, far from being nearlycomplete, the storyof sciencehas many morechapters,yet unwritten. With the perspective of the centurys advance, its as if we have climbed a mountain and can see just how much broader the story is. Instead of asking how an apple falls from a tree, as Isaac Newton did in the17thcentury,wecannowask:Whatisthefundamentalnatureofanapple (matter)? How does an apple (biological organism) form and grow? Whence came the breeze that blew it loose (meteorology)? What in a physical sense (synaptic ?rings) was the idea that Newton had, and how did it form? A new approach to science that can answer such questions has sprung up in the past 30 years. This approach  known as nonlinear scienceismore than a new ?eld. Put simply, it is the recognition that throughout nature, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Unexpected things happen.Chaos.- Solitons.- Nerve Pulses and Reaction-Diffusion Systems.- The Unity of Nonlinear Science.- Physical Applications of Nonlinear Theory.- Nonlinear Biology.- Reductionism and Life.- Epilogue.<l3¦