Product Description
An ingenious blend of science fiction and computer graphics explores the biology, sociology, and technology of the Latoo+a5carfian civilization of Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A brilliant fusion of science and fiction. Unique. Grade: A+
Forget Heinlein. Say goodbye to Azimov. Break it off with Bradbury. This is the real stuff.

_Chaos is Wonderland_ is really three books in one, each with a different style and purpose. Part I, titled "The Latööcarfian Civilization," introduces the reader to an ancient race of mathematicians that just happens to live in the ice beneath Ganymede (one of Jupiter's moons). It reads a little like a textbook, but Pickover is just setting the stage for a far grander work. A rather dull paragraph in Section 2.1 merely sets the stage:

"Far from the bright twinkling city lights and the chaotic world of humans, lives a shy, sentient race of creatures known as the Latööcarfians. Their home is Ganymede, a moon of planet Jupiter. Ganymede (radius 2,635 km / 1,636 mi) is the largest and brightest member of the Jovian family of moons. In fact, Ganymede is one of the largest satellites in the Solar System, rivalled only by Neptune's Triton, and Saturn's Titan. Ganymede has a rock and ice crust approximately 100 km thick, with a covering mantel of water or soft ice about 600 km thick. The icy surface has become dirty with age" (5).

This may not sound like easy - or even worthwhile - reading, but Pickover quickly moves to the anatomy and culture of the ice-dwelling Latööcarfians, whose gallium-arsenide biology allows them to display intricate patterns of light on their foreheads. These patterns are based on complex, chaos-theory equations: dynamical systems, Lorenz attractors, and strange attractors are thrown around and even graphed. It's no big deal if the math is beyond you (as it is beyond me) - the audacity of Pickover's ideas is what really moves the text. Loaded with photos of Jupiter and its moons, cartographic maps, and anatomical illustrations, one could easily believe that Part I is a textbook from the 25th century.

Part II, "The Dream-Weavers of Ganymede," is a swashbuckling space opera that explores all of the ideas set forth in Part I... and more. It follows the adventures of Garth and Kalinda as they explore Ganymede and run afoul of fractal spiders, brain parasites, slug- and mole-people, glass girls, and - of course - the Latööcarfians themselves. It will never be considered high literature, but it is corny fun, and chock-full of hard science.

Part III is a set of appendices, but it is worth your time. Here you will find computer programs to recreate some of the fractal patterns shown in the book, fractal games that you can build and play, "the 100 strangest mathematical titles ever published," a treatise on communicating with aliens via math, "the 15 most famous transcendental numbers," methods on how to calculate pi, and suggestions for further reading. And more! Find out the true identity of the Celestial Police, read bibliographies of mathematics in science-fiction and computers in science-fiction, plumb the secrets of the ten formulas that changed the face of the world... And more!

Last word: this amazing book is like a small library. If you like cutting-edge science, weird science, hypothetical science, abstract math, wonky space operas, or references of the bizarre, then this book will not disappoint. Grade: A++ (Yes, two plus signs. It's that good.)

Very creative and educational

The beautiful images and creative ideas set this book apart from most others on the subject of fractals, chaos, and computer art. There are endless ideas for experimentation.An excellent and fun introduction tochaos for a wide variety of readers.You will really understand theconcept of Lyapunov exponenent after you read this strange tale.

Strange, educational, beautiful!
A strange and beautiful journey through fractals, chaos, and science fiction. Filled with incredible illustrations.

Alice in fractal wonderland and through the chaos worm hole!
Dr. Pickover is a master fractal and chaos writer and tries to reach a wider public with this book. I would say that he is better on plot than on dialog and the connection between the beautiful frcatal trajectories and the plot development is pretty stretched. His heart is in the right place: I think he is the model for Dr. Malcom in the Jurassic Park movies! But he can't bring this one down to a point where you can live with the characters. Buy it for the pictures and the programs. Your unique Associates ID is:thefractaltransl.

too chaotic!
it might just me, but i found "Chaos.." to be a disappointing fairy tale about creatures in love with fractals. "Chaos.."'s only message is that fractals are weird and kinda look nice as pictures. no effort was made to give us a consistent view of Pickover's fictional world, no character relationships, and no guiding theme (except strangeness).
All i ended up with is a bunck of drawings and riddles, and eventhough i am a major in computer graphics and AI, this is absolutely unsufficient. ... Read more

Product Description
Third and final volume focuses upon the images of fractals that for many people have provided a compelling lure into an investigation of the intricate properties embedded within them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fractals for the Classroom, Book I
I was needing the book quickly and the seller sent it priority without charging me extra.Very Nice!!I used the book to do professional development with some high school teachers.

Chaos and fractals unleashed
If the words fractals, chaos and dynamical systems are attractive fixed points for your mind, go ahead. This is a book about this stuff. The three authors really unleash those topics, using numerous intriguing examples.The mathematical level is elementary. There is a good treatment bothmathematical and heuristic of the discrete dynamical system generated bythe logistic equation, this icon of the chaos and fractals theory. At eachchapter's end there is a program written in old-fashioned Basic language,but the skeleton may be recycled in, say, Mathematica or Matlab. ... Read more

Product Description
An integrated approach to fractals and point processes

This publication provides a complete and integrated presentation of the fields of fractals and point processes, from definitions and measures to analysis and estimation. The authors skillfully demonstrate how fractal-based point processes, established as the intersection of these two fields, are tremendously useful for representing and describing a wide variety of diverse phenomena in the physical and biological sciences. Topics range from information-packet arrivals on a computer network to action-potential occurrences in a neural preparation.

The authors begin with concrete and key examples of fractals and point processes, followed by an introduction to fractals and chaos. Point processes are defined, and a collection of characterizing measures are presented. With the concepts of fractals and point processes thoroughly explored, the authors move on to integrate the two fields of study. Mathematical formulations for several important fractal-based point-process families are provided, as well as an explanation of how various operations modify such processes. The authors also examine analysis and estimation techniques suitable for these processes. Finally, computer network traffic, an important application used to illustrate the various approaches and models set forth in earlier chapters, is discussed.

Throughout the presentation, readers are exposed to a number of important applications that are examined with the aid of a set of point processes drawn from biological signals and computer network traffic. Problems are provided at the end of each chapter allowing readers to put their newfound knowledge into practice, and all solutions are provided in an appendix. An accompanying Web site features links to supplementary materials and tools to assist with data analysis and simulation.

With its focus on applications and numerous solved problem sets, this is an excellent graduate-level text for courses in such diverse fields as statistics, physics, engineering, computer science, psychology, and neuroscience. ... Read more

Product Description
Contains a selection of the classical mathematical papers related to fractal geometry. Commentaries help the modern reader to understand the papers and their relation to modern work.Fractals are an important topic in such varied branches of science as mathematics, computer science, and physics. Classics on Fractals collects for the first time the historic papers on fractal geometry, dealing with such topics as non-differentiable functions, self-similarity, and fractional dimension. Of particular value are the twelve papers that have never before been translated into English. Commentaries by Professor Edgar are included to aid the student of mathematics in reading the papers, and to place them in their historical perspective. The volume contains papers from the following: Cantor, Weierstrass, von Koch, Hausdorff, Caratheodory, Menger, Bouligand, Pontrjagin and Schnirelmann, Besicovitch, Ursell, Levy, Moran, Marstrand, Taylor, de Rahm, Kolmogorov and Tihomirov, Kiesswetter, and of course, Mandelbrot. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Laying of Cornerstones of Modern Math
The title of this book is subversive.Compared to the contents of other popular books on fractals, such as Peitgen & Saupe's "Chaos and Fractals", the reader will find almost no commonality except for the word "fractal" in the title.And this is what makes this book so wonderful and refreshing.Other pop books on fractals tend to be filled with shallow descriptions, crude phenomenology, and neither hint of the underlying theory, nor any clue of the depth and importance of it.The Peitgen-Saupe series is particularly guilty of this fault.

By contrast, in this book, "Classics on Fractals", we hear Georg Cantor explain Cantor sets in his own words, and realize how trivialized the pop-lit explanations are. We have Helge von Koch explain the Koch curve, and Felix Hausdorff explain Hausdorff measure; Besicovitch explaining fractal dimensions, Paul Levy presenting fractals that tile (now called Levy dragons), and Kolmogorov theorizing about entropy.The papers reproduced in this book are fifty to one hundred years old:we catch glimpses of the cornerstones of modern mathematics being laid.

Note, however, that you will need to have strong mathematical skills and interests to find the pleasure and entertainment in this book. This is, after all, a collection of mathematical papers written by leading mathematicians, for other mathematicians, and originally published in mathematical journals.These are not simplified expositions for the lay reader.Each non-English reprint has been translated to English, and is preceded by several paragraphs of introduction to the setting and the mathematician.Serious amateurs investigating fractals will be awed by this book, and professionals will be a bit humbled on rediscovering some of the history of fractals.

Where it all began
This anthology is a collection of the classic essays on chaos, from before chaos theory was created or the word 'fractal' was coined.The math level is a little high for the general reader, but it is well worth reading once the reader has the necessary background. ... Read more

Product Description
During the last twenty years, a large number of books on nonlinear chaotic dynamics in deterministic dynamical systems have appeared. These academic tomes are intended for graduate students and require a deep knowledge of comprehensive, advanced mathematics. There is a need for a book that is accessible to general readers, a book that makes it possible to get a good deal of knowledge about complex chaotic phenomena in nonlinear oscillators without deep mathematical study.

Chaos, Bifurcations and Fractals Around Us: A Brief Introduction fills that gap. It is a very short monograph that, owing to geometric interpretation complete with computer color graphics, makes it easy to understand even very complex advanced concepts of chaotic dynamics. This invaluable publication is also addressed to lecturers in engineering departments who want to include selected nonlinear problems in full time courses on general mechanics, vibrations or physics so as to encourage their students to conduct further study. ... Read more

Product Description
Fractals have been shown to represent the common aspects of many complex processes occurring in an unusually diverse range of fields, including physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, earth sciences and technology. Among other things, a better understanding of growth phenomena, turbulence, iterative functions, colloidal aggregation, biological pattern formation and inhomogeneous materials has emerged through the application of such concepts as scale invariance, self-affinity and multifractality. This volume presents results of the application of fractals to natural science. ... Read more

Product Description
Fractals play an important role in modeling natural phenomena and engineering processes. And fractals have a close connection to the concepts of chaotic dynamics. This monograph presents definitions, concepts, notions and methodologies of both spatial and temporal fractals. It addresses students and researchers in chemistry and in chemical engineering. The authors present the concepts and methodologies in sufficient detail for uninitiated readers. They include many simple examples and graphical illustrations. They outline some examples in more detail: Perimeter fractal dimension of char particles, surface fractal dimension of charcoal; fractal analysis of pressure fluctuation in multiphase flow systems. Readers who master the concepts in this book, can confidently apply them to their fields of interest. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A case of bad editing?
My impression from reading this book is that the articles were so clipped down that in most cases it would be impossible from the text to duplicate many of the diagrams.
Since interest in fractals has centered around the graphics
in the popular mind, I blame the major editor for truncated articles by many of these great authors so that the articles are more like summaries
than true articles.
In the past when faced with such articles, I have had to search the references in order to figure out the substance of the article.
Books like this can do more harm to science than good. ... Read more

Product Description
A tutorial on self-similar fractals with a hands-on lesson for beginners in fractal geometry, complete with functional tools for more experienced users. The text describes how to use fractals to depict maturalistic surfaces such as trees and bushes, and how to create whole scenes using collections of fractal images. It also discusses the "L-system" language used in creating fractals. ... Read more

Product Description
The chaotic world of fractals meets the Macintosh for the first time in this expert exploration for users and programmers. This book examines the workings of these complex and intriguing mathematical models in a way that is accessible and engaging. Included are fully working versions of the acclaimed fractal applications FractaSketch and MandelMovie on 3.5" disk. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Exploring Fractals on the Macintosh
Excellent Introduction! If you only have time or inclination enough to read one book, and want either enough information to satisfy mild curiosity or to provide a jumping off point for further exploration, this is the book to start with. An excellent work offering a brief survey of the field of chaos and fractals, almost every page offers something new and interesting to the reader, whether or not the preceeding pages have already been read. Included are a list of quotes, an analysis of the research being done on chaos in various fields, and a list of fields that the study of chaos impacts. ... Read more

Product Description
Although the two concepts of fractals and chaos are connected, the nature of the relationship is sometimes lost in the respective details of the two theories. A principal aim of this text is to highlight this connection. It provides an introduction to both fractals and chaos and proceeds to show how certain fractals (attractors of iterated function systems) spawn chaos. ... Read more

Product Description
"A fractal is a mathematical set or object whose form is extremely irregular and/or fragmented at all scales." So reads Mandelbrot's definition of the term which he coined and widely popularised in his famous monographs. This volume presents the first systematic summary of the fractal models that have been proposed to explain the irregular features and phenomena of the Earth -- from meandering rivers and rugged coastlines to the pore space of reservoir sandstones and the prediction of earthquakes. No previous knowledge of fractals is assumed. Connections and analogies with other fields of natural and technical sciences (physics, biology, fractography, etc.) are always pointed out. More than 300 illustrations are included, demonstrating how fractal geometry reveals astonishing similarities between natural phenomena at widely different scales. The readership for this book is wide and includes: geological scientists, oceanographers, and meteorologists involved in describing and analysing irregular spatial data; as well as applied mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists looking for new fields of research. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is devoted to an importantbranch of the dynamical systems theory :the study of the fine (fractal) structure of Poincarerecurrences -instants of time when the system almost repeats its initial state. The authors were able to write an entirely self-contained text including many insights and examples, as well as providing complete details of proofs. The only prerequisites are a basic knowledge of analysis and topology. Thus this book can serve as a graduate text or self-study guide for courses in applied mathematics or nonlinear dynamics (in the natural sciences). Moreover, the book can be used by specialists in applied nonlinear dynamics following the way in the book. The authors applied the mathematical theory developed in the book to two important problems: distribution of Poincare recurrences for nonpurely chaotic Hamiltonian systems and indication of synchronization regimes in coupled chaotic individual systems.

* Portions of the book were published in an article that won the title "month's new hot paper in the field of Mathematics" in May 2004
* Rigorous mathematical theory is combined with important physical applications
* Presents rules for immediate action to study mathematical models of real systems
* Contains standard theorems of dynamical systems theory ... Read more

Product Description
The book is characterized by the illustration of cases of fractal, self-similar and multi-scale structures taken from the mechanics of solid and porous materials, which have a technical interest. In addition, an accessible and self-consistent treatment of the mathematical technique of fractional calculus is provided, avoiding useless complications. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Great book 'bout fractals
simple but complete, this book is a very good introduction to the world of fractals

Random fractals
From the standpoint of deterministic dynamics and multifractals defined by a generating partition, I do not like this book. However, for affine fractals and methods like R/S analysis it provides a very nice introduction! Like Hull's book on options, stochastic calculus is unfortunately not formulated using Ito calculus. Also nice, the gambler's ruin is presented as an example of affine scaling. What is missing is an introductory discussion of multiaffine scaling, which is of interest for soft turbulence in fluids (an introduction to multiaffine scaling with simple examples can be found in the book on surface fluctuations by Barabasi and Stanley). ... Read more