Chaos by James Gleick is a must read if you like keeping up with science or just like reading things that broaden the perspectives of your thinking. Gleick does a masterful job of simplifying the science of Chaos to a level any bright kid can understand while not diminishing any of its importance or ignoring any of the details. If you're curious about what a Klein bottle actually is or a Lorenzo's butterflies, this is the book for you. The illustrations of the Mandlbrot sets are truly amazing and worth the cost of the book just to look at. With his clear, concise style Gleick leads the reader through the history of Chaos science while building a strong foundation for the understanding of it. You don't need to know how to use a slide rule to read this book and it would be a memorable gift for any adult or child interested in science.

Nutshell review - a good book, written well and very entertaining. A good introduction to chaos and complexity science for us lay-people.

A popular science type of book (the popular part you can see from the numbers), where Gleick takes a look at the science of Chaos theory.

Not in a rigorous mathematical way, but more in a history of and introduction and overview of the subject, with of course examples of what he is talking about throughout.


3.5 out of 5

Okay, so it was a bestseller. That doesn't mean you didn't miss it. It doesn't mean you shouldn't read it again. Order in chaos and vice versa, the butterfly that creates a typhoon, fractal geometry, wildlife populations and dripping faucets (about which, more in a future Soupletter) - a book about ideas formerly on the scientific fringe that are now considered on a par with Relativity Theory (which, you will remember, made a considerable bang). ContempIating this review, I picked up CHAOS at the library (three or four years had elapsed since my first read) and was sucked in afresh. Meet a scientist who experimented with 26 hour days, another who found an operational definition of free will. Fascinatin' Rythms, Smooth Noodle Maps, Ice Ages and heartbeats. This is physics where the rubber meets the road. You don't need to follow the math (I don't, I just roll on by ...) to appreciate the ride. "Beautifully lucid," according to the San Francisco Chronicle which one notes, is published beside a once lucidly beautiful bay.

Okay, so it was a bestseller. That doesn't mean you didn't miss it. It doesn't mean you shouldn't read it again. Order in chaos and vice versa, the butterfly that creates a typhoon, fractal geometry, wildlife populations and dripping faucets (about which, more in a future Soupletter) - a book about ideas formerly on the scientific fringe that are now considered on a par with Relativity Theory (which, you will remember, made a considerable bang). ContempIating this review, I picked up CHAOS at the library (three or four years had elapsed since my first read) and was sucked in afresh. Meet a scientist who experimented with 26 hour days, another who found an operational definition of free will. Fascinatin' Rythms, Smooth Noodle Maps, Ice Ages and heartbeats. This is physics where the rubber meets the road. You don't need to follow the math (I don't, I just roll on by ...) to appreciate the ride. "Beautifully lucid," according to the San Francisco Chronicle which one notes, is published beside a once lucidly beautiful bay.

James Gleick changed my view on the scientific world forever in his book Chaos. I feel that I've removed my old, Euclidean perception of the world and have replaced it with a more complex, organic, and dynamic view. This book is a great introduction to chaos and is not meant to describe the applications of this theory. The applied sciences of chaos, complexity, or systems theories are readily available in journals and other pubs, just do a little research.

No, this book won't change your life or anything, but if you're an enthusiastic reader of lay science books, like me, it's a must read. Gleick's style can get dense and repetitive at times, but the concepts that he is conveying are slippery, at best. It's hard to get an intellectual bead on them. So the repetition is appropriate.

And if you've ever wondered how in the universe order could evolve out of chaos, this book gives us a peak at the best clues there are to what lies behind the kimono.

This is another excellent book from Gleick, surely one of the best writers alive right now.

Mathmeticians, physicists, and others that unlike me did not find college level calculus challenging may be slightly disappointed with this book. There are no real equations for the Mandelbrot Set on the cover or any of the other areas of the discipline that are illustrated so well throughout the book. I have to say that the book was extremely interesting and difficult to put down. The visual presentation rather than equations seemed effective to me and Gleick is a very good science writer. There is possibly no other book that has stirred interest in this subject as well as this book for the layman in its 20 years. If you're not disappointed that you won't need a calculator to read this, I think you would appreciate the explanations for this new perspective on physics, meterology, biology, geology and math. I think of this book many times when I see alluvial flow patterns in the sand, the veination of leaves, mammotous clouds. It's an eye opener to part of the world that you may not perceive or begin to understand without reading this book.

Mathmeticians, physicists, and others that unlike me did not find college level calculus challenging may be slightly disappointed with this book. There are no real equations for the Mandelbrot Set on the cover or any of the other areas of the discipline that are illustrated so well throughout the book. I have to say that the book was extremely interesting and difficult to put down. The visual presentation rather than equations seemed effective to me and Gleick is a very good science writer. There is possibly no other book that has stirred interest in this subject as well as this book for the layman in its 20 years. If you're not disappointed that you won't need a calculator to read this, I think you would appreciate the explanations for this new perspective on physics, meterology, biology, geology and math. I think of this book many times when I see alluvial flow patterns in the sand, the veination of leaves, mammotous clouds. It's an eye opener to part of the world that you may not perceive or begin to understand without reading this book.

Mathmeticians, physicists, and others that unlike me did not find college level calculus challenging may be slightly disappointed with this book. There are no real equations for the Mandelbrot Set on the cover or any of the other areas of the discipline that are illustrated so well throughout the book. I have to say that the book for me was extremely interesting and difficult to put down. The visual presentation rather than equations seemed effective to me and Gleick is a very good science writer. There is possibly no other book that has stirred interest in this subject as well as this book for the layman in its 20 years. If you're not disappointed that you won't need a calculator to read this, I think you would appreciate the explanations for this new perspective on physics, meterology, biology, geology and math. I think of this book many times when I see alluvial flow patterns in the sand, the veination of leaves, mammotous clouds. It's an eye opener to part of the world that you may not have noticed without reading this book.

Mathmeticians, physicists, and others that unlike me did not find college level calculus challenging may be slightly disappointed with this book. There are no real equations for the Mandelbrot Set on the cover or any of the other areas of the discipline that are illustrated so well throughout the book. I have to say that the book for me was extremely interesting and difficult to put down. The visual presentation of the book made sense to me and Gleick is a very good science writer. There is possibly no other book that has stirred interest in this subject as well as this book for the layman in its 20 years. If you're not disappointed that you won't need a calculator to read this, I think you would appreciate the explanations for this new perspective on physics, meterology, biology, geology and math. I think of this book many times when I see alluvial flow patterns in the sand, the veination of leaves, mammotous clouds. It's an eye opener to part of the world that you may not have noticed without reading this book.

Is Chaos theory a new title? Or a catchy name tacked on to the science explained by non-linear math? Either way, James Gleick explains the emergence of a new non-mainstream science movement. Like most of his pop science work, Gleick delves into the history, personalities and impacts of the science, as opposed to the in depth mathematics behind it. Taken as that, it's a worthy book that meets it's goals - documenting what might have been the beginning of a great scientific revolution.

Is Chaos theory a new title? Or a catchy name tacked on to the science explained by non-linear math? Either way, James Gleick explains the emergence of a new non-mainstream science movement. Like most of his pop science work, Gleick delves into the history, personalities and impacts of the science, as opposed to the in depth mathematics behind it. Taken as that, it's a worthy book that meets it's goals - documenting what might have been the beginning of a great scientific revolution.

Chaos is as great a science book as it gets outside of some of the better than your average undergrad science textbooks; i'm talking about the good textbooks like "Project Physics Course" or Morris Kline's "Calculus". As noted by some who obviously have pride in knowing the real thing, these types of books are not the real thing; the real question is 'are they worth anything?' Yes! These general science books that are good general science books are philosophy books.

This Chaos theory book has been ranked pretty highly for its philosophizing as far as I can tell. To say the least, this is where my shock at contemporary supposedly 'intellectuals' goes up! James Gliek goes on and on(he even has a whole chapter called "Revolution" in the book) about how Chaos theory is a new science(o.k. it is), and that this new science raises questions about scientific method; to say the least, if chaos theory challenges you on scientific method, then your already dead in the water as far as an understanding of science and its methods are concerned! In fact, humanity takes steps backwards if a book that argues this stance is so popular with the 'intellectual' community. Ernst Casserir and Jacob Bronowski way back in the stone ages of the 1900's had all this figured out. Jacob Bronowski's books were published because his articles were so popular! What happened?

What happened is a new generation was born every fifteen to twenty years, and they just learned what they needed to.

Getting back to James Gliek's 'Chaos', he talks about how Chaos theory blows up the 'reductionist' views of science. Chaos theory is somehow more holistic than previous sciences. Never mind how he never mentions how Maxwell's electromagnetism 'combines' light with electricity; quantum mechanics derives chemistry, and General Relativity derives newtonian mechanics, he never even mentions how the abstract nature of mathematics works. Mathematics is an abstraction(not the popular notions of empty and vagueness); abstraction is the common form that any set of similar structures can take on; the famous example is how a couple of oranges and apples are two concrete examples of the common form of the number two. Abstraction is a unification; all of mathematics and science concepts are such unifications at one time or another. A strange attractor does not break this scientific methodology; it is as much an abstraction as any scientific concept.

Scientists seem to have lost track of all this including all these transhumanists who just happen to be nanotechnologists

Why are snow flakes so different?

And: Is there any limit to the shapes they can assume?

It turns out that the answers to both these simple questions involve matters of the highest import to the nature of how reality itself is constructed.

With brief, pithy descriptions of the discovers who've staked out the territory of choas theory, Gleick lucidly describes the theory's basic applications and relevance to other established fields of study.

Firstly, Gleick demonstrates how choas is not uniform. That is to say, it predicatably yields to patterns and even predictably produces pockets of order.

These first assertions speak mightily to common sense Aquinas notions of purposeful design.

Then, in the areas of physics and chemistry and biology and even architecture, Gleick discusses how choas can be helpful in maximizing surface area while minimizing volume. Part of the resonant beauty of for example the Eifel Tower is its use of fractal structure giving it a more organic look.

Also, he explores the ultimate importance of even minor differences. Just as a butterfly flapping its wing can litterally alter the balance to create a sunny day, subtle differences in temperature and atom distribution give snowflakes their own unique individuality.

And like each snowflake has its own unique, irreplaceable beauty, this book shows that so too each life -- choatically brought into being -- has its own irreplaceable beauty.

Here is a readable and fascinating account of the development of the new science of chaos theory, the only body of ideas that describes how the natural world as experienced by human beings emerges out of basic quantum processes. The different explorers and innovators of the new science are introduced in a personable way that will enchant the interested reader.

Here is a readable and fascinating account of the development of the new science of chaos theory, the only body of ideas that describes how the natural world as experienced by human beings emerges out of basic quantum processes. The different explorers and innovators of the new science are introduced in a personable way that will enchant the interested reader.

I think it's weird how other readers have given this book a low rating because Gleick writes about the scientists involved in chaos theory and doesn't include enough math. The subtitle is "Making a New Science" so I don't know what they expected. I read this many years ago and found it a fascinating read. I really enjoyed it, and reading it whetted my curiosity to learn more -- not a bad thing!

Chaos is a book about modern trends in physics; it is about the people and the history of a completely new trend in thinking about physical systems. In this fascinating book James Gleick does a very good job of integrating our knowledge about `randomness', `fractals', and of course `chaos'. The book is written in an engaging style that can appeal to everybody that is interested in our physical world and the people that is creating new ideas and insights into what we know about it. We all should know something about this new phenomenon because it is going to shape our understanding of the world around us in the future. Chaos theory is having an impact on medicine, weather forecasting, and just about anything you can think about.

This not a textbook for math or science majors looking to learn the subject - they won't. This is not a book for artists and philosophers wanting to extrapolate chaos theory into some grand world view re-ordering the socio-political order. Gleick doesn't go there.
In fact, the book reads like an extended article in Time or Newsweek on the history of Chaos theory - heavy on personalities and drama,but very light on math. I liked the book - Fiegenbaum being my favorite personality. However, it did leave me hungry to find out more.

The style and subject matter treatment are similar to Hawking's "Brief History of Time" and du Sautoy's "Music of the Primes"

I was going to wait until I finished reading this book to review it - seeing as how I still have 100 pages to go - but I'm not sure if I'll be able to ever finish it.

The book spends A LOT of time telling you the back story about how certain achievements were made in the field of science, but when it finally comes time to report the results of those achievements, the reader is only partially satisfied. Very little actual science, and a lot of biographical information. I was hoping it would be the other way around. If you're interested in reading biographies of scientists you've probably never heard of, this is definitely the book for you.

Why would I give a book I didn't finish 2 stars? Because I did pick up a few interesting mathematical tidbits from the sections I read. I just didn't pick up enough tidbits to keep me going. The universal constant is interesting, and the cross section of the chaotic 3-D graph is interesting too.

Great for scientific history buffs, but those looking for application for personal use, forget it.

I met Chaos by James Gleick when pursuing my MSc in Biology, and I was instantaneously fascinated by it.

The book organisation is complete and accurate, descriptions of origins of chaos science are enlightening and pictures of future applications very well designed.

A real must for any science fan, and an essential reading for any person involved in biology, chemistry or physics.

Amazing.

Being written in a comprehendible language, it is really a nice intelligent book presented and further inspired an innovative complex field of modern science.

No clue, whether a Chaos inventor was bestowed with any prize upon at all.

This book has been on my "to read" list for several years, so I looked forward to getting to read it. While it is written in an entertaining style, I cannot whole-heartedly recommend it. This is more a book about the people who made contributions to chaos theory (non-linear dynamics and Fractals) than a coherent presentation of these theories. This is not the book to get if you want to understand Chaos theories, as it has less depth than the average Scientific American article. After reading it, I got a general feeling for the subject, but it was something that I had to piece together from the narrative.

As an analogy, it is as if a book on the Battle of Gettysburg consisted of biographical sketches of two-dozen of the participants, each detailing their contributions, but without an overview of the battle as a whole. You would learn about the people who fought there and from the descriptions of their individual contributions, you could piece together an idea of the battle. A good historian takes this type of information and uses it to create a coherent picture. I expect the same from a science writer.

The book contains some illustrations of chaotic systems and fractals, but in my opinion not enough. There are only a few mathematical equations; again in my opinion this could have been beefed up (at least in an appendix). I came away with a feeling that Chaos theory is very important and has many applications in different fields of science, but I knew this already, which is why I read the book. I would have preferred more of a linear presentation rather than this somewhat chaotic one.

It's very well written. It's not a textbook, nor a history, and not a novel, but it meets some of the standards for each. Should be fully comprehensible to any numerate person (cf. literate...). It's almost 20 years old, and it's still worthwhile; and don't forget, it was there first. It was the first book in ages that informed the rest of us about what the mathematicians were doing.

This author talks about "chaos" without ever revealing defininitive examples. For example, he relates that Lorentz modeled complex (i.e., non-linear) behavior with just three equations, and that these were inpired by the fluid motion of convection. But does he (the author) reveal what the equations are? No Way. In fact, there is not a single equation in the entire book! For someone who is mathematically challenged by balancing their own checkbook, this book gives a big picture (with stunning displays of fractal pictures) of chaos, without required the reader to get his hands dirty. For this mathematically bent, Ph.D. engineer, the book was a disappointment. I now know some physical examples of chaos, but I know no more about the details than I did when I picked up the book.

When I first picked up Gleick's "Chaos" I was a little skeptical - could a book written in 1987 still work as an introduction to chaos and nonlinear dynamics, a field that has been evolving rapidly for the past eighteen years? Well, in a certain sense, it turns out it can.

The truth is that the focus of Gleick's book is not so much chaos itself as it is the people who first explored chaos theory and eventually managed to make it respectable and bring it into the mainstream. As the book's subtitle hints, Gleick is concerned mainly with how a 'new science' is 'made', not necessarily with the actual science or math involved. This was not quite what I was expecting from "Chaos", but it is actually an advantage for the book, since its age becomes somewhat irrelevant: although chaos theory itself has been growing and evolving dramatically in recent decades, "Chaos" deals only with its roots in the '60s, '70s and early '80s. On the other hand, I was hoping for more discussion of the science itself, rather than the personalities involved in its early development.

I was also not that taken with the style of Gleick's writing. His narrative tends to jump around rapidly, often spending only a few pages on some person or event before moving on to another, commonly with little in the way of connection or logical transition. This is fine for short articles in newspapers and magazines, but it doesn't work so well in a 300+ page book. The vast cast of characters (meteorologists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, biologists, ecologists and many others) spins in and out of view, and it can be very difficult to get more than a general impression how the little pieces all fit together in the big picture.

However, even though I'm complaining about the content and presentation, I'm still giving "Chaos" four stars. This is because "Chaos" managed to get me interested in and excited about nonlinear dynamics. Gleick was able to convey the sense of wonder and excitement that comes from looking at nature in a new way, through the lens of nonlinearity. He successfully presented the making of this new science as the greatest and most exciting scientific revolution since the development of quantum mechanics - with the difference that chaos is more accessible, more understandable, and applicable in a far wider range of fields.

In short, "Chaos" still achieves its goal 18 years after it was written. It gets the reader (this reader, at least) interested in and excited about nonlinear dynamics and eager to explore the topic in greater depth. Reading Gleick's book inspired me to pick up a copy of Robert Hilborn's "Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics" from the library and take a more serious look at the science itself. "Chaos" should make a good read for anyone who knows little or nothing about chaos or nonlinear dynamics but is curious about the topic and interested in learning a bit about its early development.

This book is one of the earliest and best introductions to chaos theory available for the generalist. It is not so much a science text as it is a biography of the people who melded this amalgam of mathematics and science to produce an entirely new view of the world from a macro, rather than a micro viewpoint. Gleick's writing style is somewhat akin to a skilled mystery novelist, as he has a decided knack for revealing just the right tidbit at just the right time to optimally entertain and inform.

The scientific discussions in the book are relatively shallow, as is fitting for a general audience; after all the book was a national best seller and not only to be found in obscure corners of university bookstores. True academics and professionals within the field (or more accurately, fields) may find the book interesting, but more so from a historical standpoint rather than a rigorous scientific standpoint.

My assessment is that Gleick did the general reader a huge favor by producing this masterpiece, in that it serves as an excellent introduction to chaos theory that is accessible and comprehensible by intelligent people of varied backgrounds. In that sense he greatly surpassed his goal: this book is eminently readable and serves as a wonderful introduction to the science and personalities behind this new and wondrous theory.

Gleick does indeed cover some very difficult material in a very readable way. However, he misrepresents some of the ideas dangerously. The book is full of hero worship and idolization of the scientists he writes about, and he comes across sounding like Moses come down from the mountain carrying the stone tablets of chaos theory. In the end, the facts are right, but the interpretation would make any of the scientists he describes grimace.

I enjoyed this book and although I wish it had gone more into depth on the subject of chaos theory it is a good introduction. That being said I would not characterize it as being "dumbed down". I believe even those scientists in other disciplines will benefit from reading this book as introduction. It is also an approachable book that I think many people that do not read science will enjoy.

At the date of the writing of this review a number of the concepts introduced in this book have now found there way into the mainstream. Nevertheless I believe the book so far has survived the test of time.

Along with being a book about the new science it is a book about how a new science comes together and the later is an interesting topic in and of itself.

They are also some amusing tales of some of the various characters (a type I know well) that hold their devotion to science above a concern of appearing as eccentrics. Not all scientists are social misfits but one of the insights this book gives to the general public is that many scientists are totally oblivious to social conventions and this trait is not an affectation but an unfortunate consequence of their dedication to pursuing scientific truths.

Four and a half stars.
Highly recommended.

This book tells the stories of the scientists responsible for giving birth to and developing chaos theory. These stories are extremely well-written and engaging, but unfortunately the author does not give the science part equal attention. It is a very entertaining book, and you will come away from the book with a genuine curiosity for science in general and chaos theory in particular, but you won't find out much about chaos theory itself. Which is kind of tragic, cos you just finished reading a whole book on the subject. Maybe the writer did not want to get into mathematics. But I still feel kind of cheated.

James Gleick's Chaos: Making A New Science is blessedly not for the mathematically-minded. Gleick opens the book with a rather oblique character study of Mitchell Feigenbaum, designed to lead the reader's now-captive imagination into a slow narrative unfolding of the work behind the man. Gleick writes in elucidatory, fresh prose; he is expert at tying together metaphor and concept in a way which is never plodding and, fortunately, almost never rigorous. What Gleick manages to do is to treat broadly the large principles of chaos without digging deep into the more penetrating mathematics of what chaos science actually is. This makes the books readable for even casual laymen; the ideas contained herein are deep enough to ruminate on without struggling with mathematical formulae which are impossible for all but the most serious avocational mathematician.

A great, fast read. Those laymen interested in further study of chaos theory and its consequent, complexity theory, may do well to then read Waldrop's Complexity: The Emerging Science At The Edge of Order And Chaos, and then, armed with at least the knowledge of whom among the major players in chaos and complexity wrote which about what, proceed into his area of interest.

Few writers write clearly and concisely about science and Mathematics. James Gleick, a former science writer for the New York Times, writes about the first years of the study of chaos.

Focusing on scientists rather than science, Gleick explains the thought processes and investigative techniques researchers applied to chaos problems. Rather than attempt to explain Julia sets, Lorenz attractors, and the Mandelbrot Set with complicated equations, Chaos employs sketches, photographs, and descriptive prose.

There are not many writers who have the ability to write on two planes. One is understandable by the general public. The other is appreciated by experts who grasp the subject matter and appreciate the author's depth of understanding. I am not one of the latter. While reading the book, I found myself long for math that would connect the prose to the science.

Nevertheless, this book is a history of a new science. Limited as it is, it inspired me to further study. It is probably asking too much to expect more from a book about science's frontiers.

Have you ever wondered why a leaf or tree is shaped the way it is? Can science explain the seemingly randomness of nature? This book will make your imagination run wild. Pure science meets Mother Nature. I would read from this book each night before I went to bed and then just dream about the possibilities. This is one of the most thought provoking books I have ever read. I grab this book off the shelf at least once a month and just thumb through it again to revisit some of the ideas. His explanation and discussions about nonlinear dynamics were very eye opening for me. The author also did a great job of providing a brief background of each scientific breakthrough along the way. This provided allot of additional and interesting facts that directly contributed to ones understanding.

You don't have to be a genius to comprehend and enjoy this book. Some of the reviews for this book complain about there not being enough math to support the theory. The lack of advanced math made this book even more enjoyable for me. The average person will appreciate this book just as much as anyone else.

This book also has some very nice full color illustrations. Nothing was spared for this book. You won't be disappointed.

First, the plusses. The book reads easily, and Gleick is careful to explain all the concepts he introduces so that a layman reader will understand. There is a lot of history in this book, where Gleick first explains the person who made the discovery before he explains the discovery itself. These sections can be tedious to a reader interested in the science, not Edward Lorenz' personal habits, but it works well to steady the pace of the book, and to give the non-scientific reader a breather before diving into more scientific concepts.

You can't always have the best of both worlds, though, and so at times, a more scientifically or mathematically reader will be frustrated with the lack of detail concerning some of the interesting concepts developed here. For example, Gleick mentions fractional dimensionality, but fails to really explain it well, probably assuming that it is beyond most of his readers. This is probably a safe bet for layman readers, but left me very frustrated in places. Also, Gleick's writing (praised as "novelistic") gets overly melodramatic in places, and the reader gets the distinct impression that he's trying too hard to make this book accessible.

But even despite these flaws, this is an excellent introduction to chaos theory, and worth reading for scientists and laymen alike. This book makes you want to learn more about chaos theory, and does a good job at making chaos accessible. It was written over fifteen years ago, though, so a more recent book on chaos would be a good supplement.

Chaos is a profound book. It provides you a new pair of glasses that changes completely how you look at this world. For anyone with even a little background in mathematics and physics, or rather a taste for science, this book provides a stimulating compilation on emergence of non-linear science. The story is written inbibing the usually unsung scientists as heroes of a vibrant saga of discovery, eccentricity and revolution of ideas!

Personally when I first read this book an year ago, I was able to comprehend that non-linear dynamics and chaos present a new set of tools to describe systems in all realms of science. The study of chaos contains key to understanding our nature better. Complexity is beautiful in form and patterns in chaos both awe and fascinate! An year later I am still trying to understand the technical details and mathematicals of chaos and nonlinear dynamics, but I feel an excitement for which I must thank Gleick! And not surprisingly, I have now moved to research with an open mind about possibilities in domains of nonlinearty.

Like I Ching said, "Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos". Maybe as Gleick claims, Chaos will be rated just below relativity and quantum mechanics as the key discoveries of last century!! Read it: it is fun!

This book is more of an history book than a science book by volume. It drags on and on over the history of the scientists, however when it gets to explain the chaos characteristics it does so in a choppy way which might make the reader distracted and confused. Overall: MEDIOCRE.

Chaos is a great book, however for an under-achiever (not passed calculus) person, it can and will be difficult in some chapters. The author does a pretty good job explaining Chaos Theory and gives excellent background information.

Drawing on examples form biology to astronomy, Gleick manages to make a complicated subject appealing to people from all scientific and mathematical backgrounds. I would not reccomend this book for the general layperson though, unless that person has a sincere scientific interest.
Gleick's logic is easy to follow and Appears complete. Though drawing from so many examples, I sometimes had the feeling that parts were repetitive. I did appreciate his thorough history of "Making a new science", it was written in a way such that I was able to keep the major players straight and made me appreciate their contributions. Sometimes the history of the idea is just as important and interesting as the idea itself, yet less written about.
The source notes are exhaustive and the index is complete. Make sure you read the prologue as Gleick prepares the reader for the material book and get his readers, at least me anyways!, excited to start dipping into his work. All in all I would say this book is a must-read and every working scientist and science student should have a basic background in chaos (aka nonlinear dynamics) in order to think more deeply and realistically about whatever subject they are studying, modelling or researching.

I'm on the heels of 72 other reviewers so there's not much sense saying more. I found the book understandable and enjoyable. A rare combination where physics is concerned.

This book is an excellent book. It clearly explains the concepts and the history of chaos theory. This book shows the reader some very interesting and deep insights into the way the universe works. I am an electrcial engineering student, and I have seen how chaos can be used in engineering. This book explains some of the applications of chaos theory. I would recommend this book for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of chaos theory.

This is good coda and accompaniement to Gleick's recent book on Isaac Newton and is a classic chestnut in this subject, the 'later career' of the mechanics, born to such exactitude and the solid hopes of hard-wired physical law. The troubles began in the eighteenth/nineteenth century as the new analytical mechanics began to reckon with the Newtonian implications of the three body problem, and Poincare, the real discoverer of chaos, takes it from there. His prodigious powers of visualization of the problem short of the real instruments, before the days of computers, to calculate the details is practically a myth of the ancient giants. Resurfacing in the age of the brainy digit crunchers, physics will never be the same, even subtracting the hype that tends to mystify the onrush of complexity theory.

The book provides insight into the science of complexity and chaos. The author presents the field in an easy to understand language and provides fascinating observations from real life. There is no doubt that chaos and complexity theory is making a strong impact in the various scientific fields for example physics, biology, epidemiology, genetics, chemistry, management science . The book provides a non-technical introduction to this growing field and takes the reader through the various stages of the historical development of this area. I would recommend this book to anyone who is fascinated by science and who at some point in time wondered about many aspects in nature that doesn't have a good explanation based on our conventional knowledge of science.

Please don't read this book and think you know very much about Chaos, but it is a fun read. I really like Gleik's writing. I read Genius First, but found this book a real page-turner also. I especially liked the romantic description of Lorenz torwards the beginning in the book. I am fascinated by and find much beauty in clouds, so this book really set it's hook into me effectively. It also has some nice illustrations and descriptions of more popular algorithms.

One day during my junior year, at the end of computer science, I was browsing one of the bookshelves above the printers. Andrew Merrill pointed out a slightly battered and rather thick paperback called Chaos, by James Gleick. It came highly recommended by Andrew, and a national bestseller to boot, so I took it home and read it.
Chaos has contributed greatly to my appreciation of physics and complex mathematics. Previous to reading the book, I knew only a little about the ideas behind chaos theory, and had less knowledge of the myriad of applications of very advanced mathematics. Chaos isn't a textbook. Through illustrations and thoughtfully prepared explanation, which reads smoothly like a novel, James Gleick seems to truly capture not only the essential core of Chaos Theory, but also the excitement and lives of some of the researchers who have contributed to the science.
It's an interesting read to any one of the myriad Catlin students going heavily into the sciences, like myself. But even those who feel strictly interested in the arts, history, or theater could find themselves intrigued by the book. I don't think that I would be stretching my own impressions if I asserted that Chaos is a powerful enough work to engender an interest in the sciences and advanced mathematics in even the least inclined. It also answers the inevitable questions, "what can I do with all this math?" and "where will all this studying take me?" The colorful and complete descriptions of scientists, research, programs of study, and industrial applications of chaos theory paint a tempting picture of the availability and opportunity for interesting careers in research.
In my opinion, far too little of real, advanced science is known about by the layman. Science and research should be cornerstones of a powerful, civilized nation. If everybody here were to read Chaos I think that it may well change the lives of some of them. If people across the nation took the same interest in real scientific literature, think about how that could change the world.

James Barker, a computer science major, UCSB

Gleick has written a book about seeing order in disorder and simplicity in complexity. The book in a sense is a historical record of chaos from its beginnings through to the late 1980s. Chaos manifests itself in all areas of life from a dripping faucet to the beating of the heart to the spread of various epidemics. Gleick explores all different facets of chaos in a delightful manner. The main players take on a life of their own and the book is written in an interesting and captivating style.

Speaking from a layman's perspective, some of the content is difficult to grasp. At times I felt the material required technical knowledge which I simply did not possess. However, many of the concepts are wonderfully illustrated including a collection of colour photographs depicting various chaotic phenomena including the famous Mandelbrot set.

All in all a very interesting, educational read for anyone who enjoys science writing.

1987 was the right time for a book like "Chaos," about the recent developments of a relatively new and exciting mathematical phenomenon that might interest a general public for whom higher mathematics normally has slightly less appeal than a root canal. It seems a little dated in 2002, especially with regard to the enormous interim advances in computing power, but James Gleick's book still provides valuable insight into potentially one of the most effective and revolutionary mathematical tools that may solve complex problems in science and engineering that have been baffling mankind for centuries.

Many processes and systems in nature can be modeled mathematically with differential equations, which are useful to scientists and engineers to predict and design things to improve the standard of living. Unfortunately, most of these systems are nonlinear, meaning that adding to an input does not produce the same addition to the output and that scaling an input does not scale the output in proportion, and the equations they yield cannot be solved in closed form without applying some judicious and optimistic simplifications. In particular, most systems have what is called "sensitive dependence to initial conditions" -- small changes in the input to the system can lead to large, unpredictable, and uncontrollable changes in the output, a phenomenon summarily called the Butterfly Effect.

The main point Gleick makes is that chaos is not total randomness, but rather randomness within certain generalities. For example, summers can be expected to be generally warm and winters generally cold, but specifics like thunderstorms and blizzards can't be predicted due to turbulence and the nonlinear nature of the Navier-Stokes equation, the defining equation of fluid dynamics. There is indeed order in chaos (as illustrated by fractals); it just needs to be identified and codified. To that effect, the book offers many pretty, colorful pictures of various representations of chaos: the Lorenz attractor, the Mandelbrot set, the Koch snowflake (a paradoxical finite area surrounded by an infinite perimeter), the Sierpinski carpet, and the Menger sponge (a paradoxical solid of infinite surface area yet zero volume).

Gleick discusses the origins of the study of chaos and its applications to different sciences -- physiology (heart rhythms, dimensions of organs), biology (animal populations), even economics. The writing is very good, explanatory without resorting to textbook-like rigidity, and not at all math-intensive -- very few equations are presented (in fact, I would have liked to have seen more). A reader who is familiar with differential equations (and how they describe physical systems) and calculus (and how it is used as a tool to solve linear differential equations) will have an easier time with the concepts, but rest assured this is a book for everybody.

A few years ago I was the only Psychology major in an upper division math course, Dynamic Systems and Chaos Theory. Though I was a minor in math with a decent mathematical background, the complex systems of equations were at first very daunting. This book was recommended to me and I read it in two days, it was so clearly written. It provided me with enough history of the development of dynamic systems theory (a more appropriate name for the science than Chaos) to give the math I was learning some context. I recommend it to anyone who is trying to apply the theories of Dynamic systems to social sciences, whether they are interested in the math or not.

I found this book fascinating, not just because of the look at the science, but also from a historical perspective, as Gleick traces various ideas and approaches' development and transformation within the science of chaos. I liked the passage in which he moved from Newton's conceptualization of light and color to Gothe's (better known as a writer, considered by some the 'father of German literature') more wholeistic look at the problem, which sounds rather silly until it turns out that scientists moved on to this type of approach when the tools of chaos made it possible, allowing new insights to be made. Gleick thankfully avoids the patronizing tone and "superiority complex" which many science writers use to deride non-scientific persuits as having less depth than a kiddie pool. However, the framework of the book chaos owes a lot to Thomas Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and while this approach allows Glick pull together many interesting and disparate bits of information (ie Newton/Gothe) that I like as a non-scientist, I wonder what the scientists, especially those mentioned in the later, paradigm-shift focus the book, would have to say about this book as a chronicle of their work. The strict Kuhn-ian terms provide a nice narrative structure, as well as heroes for the story, but I wonder how this might be misleading.