This largely self-contained textbook on qualitative dynamics and chaos is intended for a broad audience of readers who are interested in describing systems that change over time using a mathematically simple, but conceptually rigorous, framework centered around descriptive sequences of symbols. This framework also allows readers who may not have a large amount of mathematical training to develop an unambiguous understanding of the notion of chaos and related aspects of dynamical systems theory. Concepts and techniques are introduced in the first parts of the book, which are later expanded to more mathematically abstract ideas in the latter parts of the book. For those who are already have some mathematical training, this text is intended to be an alternative to standard symbolic dynamics textbooks which both mildly generalizes their scope and specifically centers its discussion around dynamical systems theory aspects. It uses the notion of a "falsifiable system"—a type of set of infinite symbol sequences, which is an extension of both formal languages and symbolic dynamical systems—as a central conceptual link between the theory of formal languages and the study of chaos, and allows readers a method to identify chaos within such systems (and systems equivalent to them) by entirely graphical methods. The latter parts of the book then focus on how to apply these methods to understand the dynamics of more traditional, numerically-based systems.

Bifurcation and Chaos has dominated research in nonlinear dynamics for over two decades and numerous introductory and advanced books have been published on this subject. There remains, however, a dire need for a textbook which provides a pedagogically appealing yet rigorous mathematical bridge between these two disparate levels of exposition. This book is written to serve the above unfulfilled need.Following the footsteps of Poincaré, and the renowned Andronov school of nonlinear oscillations, this book focuses on the qualitative study of high-dimensional nonlinear dynamical systems. Many of the qualitative methods and tools presented in this book were developed only recently and have not yet appeared in a textbook form.In keeping with the self-contained nature of this book, all topics are developed with an introductory background and complete mathematical rigor. Generously illustrated and written with a high level of exposition, this book will appeal to both beginners and advanced students of nonlinear dynamics interested in learning a rigorous mathematical foundation of this fascinating subject.

This textbook is aimed at newcomers to nonlinear dynamics and chaos, especially students taking a first course in the subject. The presentation stresses analytical methods, concrete examples, and geometric intuition. The theory is developed systematically, starting with first-order differential equations and their bifurcations, followed by phase plane analysis, limit cycles and their bifurcations, and culminating with the Lorenz equations, chaos, iterated maps, period doubling, renormalization, fractals, and strange attractors.

Complex dynamics constitute a growing and increasingly important area as they offer a strong potential to explain and formalize natural, physical, financial and economic phenomena. This book pursues the ambitious goal to bring together an extensive body of knowledge regarding complex dynamics from various academic disciplines. Beyond its focus on economics and finance, including for instance the evolution of macroeconomic growth models towards nonlinear structures as well as signal processing applications to stock markets, fundamental parts of the book are devoted to the use of nonlinear dynamics in mathematics, statistics, signal theory and processing. Numerous examples and applications, almost 700 illustrations and numerical simulations based on the use of Matlab make the book an essential reference for researchers and students from many different disciplines who are interested in the nonlinear field. An appendix recapitulates the basic mathematical concepts required to use the book.

Chaos: from simple models to complex systems aims to guide science and engineering students through chaos and nonlinear dynamics from classical examples to the most recent fields of research. The first part, intended for undergraduate and graduate students, is a gentle and self-contained introduction to the concepts and main tools for the characterization of deterministic chaotic systems, with emphasis to statistical approaches. The second part can be used as a reference by researchers as it focuses on more advanced topics including the characterization of chaos with tools of information theory and applications encompassing fluid and celestial mechanics, chemistry and biology. The book is novel in devoting attention to a few topics often overlooked in introductory textbooks and which are usually found only in advanced surveys such as: information and algorithmic complexity theory applied to chaos and generalization of Lyapunov exponents to account for spatiotemporal and non-infinitesimal perturbations. The selection of topics, numerous illustrations, exercises and proposals for computer experiments make the book ideal for both introductory and advanced courses. Sample Chapter(s). Introduction (164 KB). Chapter 1: First Encounter with Chaos (1,323 KB). Contents: First Encounter with Chaos; The Language of Dynamical Systems; Examples of Chaotic Behaviors; Probabilistic Approach to Chaos; Characterization of Chaotic Dynamical Systems; From Order to Chaos in Dissipative Systems; Chaos in Hamiltonian Systems; Chaos and Information Theory; Coarse-Grained Information and Large Scale Predictability; Chaos in Numerical and Laboratory Experiments; Chaos in Low Dimensional Systems; Spatiotemporal Chaos; Turbulence as a Dynamical System Problem; Chaos and Statistical Mechanics: Fermi-Pasta-Ulam a Case Study. Readership: Students and researchers in science (physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology) and engineering.

This book deals with the global qualitative behavior of flows and diffeomorphisms. It presents a systematic study of the fundamental theory and method of dynamical systems, from local behavior near a critical (fixed) point or periodic orbit to the global, such as global structural stability, bifurcations and chaos. It emphasizes the global non-hyperbolicity and introduces some new results obtained by Chinese mathematicians which may not be widely known.

Differential equations are the basis for models of any physical systems that exhibit smooth change. This book combines much of the material found in a traditional course on ordinary differential equations with an introduction to the more modern theory of dynamical systems. Applications of this theory to physics, biology, chemistry, and engineering are shown through examples in such areas as population modeling, fluid dynamics, electronics, and mechanics. Differential Dynamical Systems begins with coverage of linear systems, including matrix algebra; the focus then shifts to foundational material on nonlinear differential equations, making heavy use of the contraction-mapping theorem. Subsequent chapters deal specifically with dynamical systems concepts?flow, stability, invariant manifolds, the phase plane, bifurcation, chaos, and Hamiltonian dynamics. This new edition contains several important updates and revisions throughout the book. Throughout the book, the author includes exercises to help students develop an analytical and geometrical understanding of dynamics. Many of the exercises and examples are based on applications and some involve computation; an appendix offers simple codes written in Maple, Mathematica, and MATLAB software to give students practice with computation applied to dynamical systems problems.