Pendulum is the simplest nonlinear system, which, however, provides the means for the description of different phenomena in Nature that occur in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, communications, economics and sociology. The chaotic behavior of pendulum is usually associated with the random force acting on a pendulum (Brownian motion). Another type of chaotic motion (deterministic chaos) occurs in nonlinear systems with only few degrees of freedom. This book presents a comprehensive description of these phenomena going on in underdamped and overdamped pendula subject to additive and multiplicative periodic and random forces. No preliminary knowledge, such as complex mathematical or numerical methods, is required from a reader other than undergraduate courses in mathematical physics. A wide group of researchers, along with students and teachers will, thus, benefit from this definitive book on nonlinear dynamics.

The chaotic behavior of pendulum is usually associated with the random force acting on a pendulum (Brownian motion). This book presents a comprehensive description of these phenomena going on in underdamped and overdamped pendula subject to additive and multiplicative periodic and random forces.

Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.

This book contains all invited contributions of an interdisciplinary workshop of the UNESCO working group on systems analysis of the European and North American region entitled "Stochastic Phenomena and Chaotic Behaviour in Complex Systems". The meeting was held at Hotel Winterthalerhof in Flattnitz, Karnten, Austria from June 6-10, 1983. This workshop brought together some 20 mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists, psychologists and economists from different European and American coun tries who share a common interest in the dynamics of complex systems and their ana lysis by mathematical techniques. The workshop in Flattnitz continued a series of meetings of the UNESCO working group on systems analysis which started in 1977 in Bucharest and was continued in Cambridge, U.K., 1981 and in Lyon, 1982. The title of the meeting was chosen in order to focus on one of the current problems of the analysis of dynamical systems. A deeper understanding of the vari ous sources of stochasticity is of primary importance for the interpretation of experimental observations. Chaotic dynamics plays a central role since it intro duces a stochastic element into deterministic systems.

The pendulum: a case study in physics is a unique book in several ways. Firstly, it is a comprehensive quantitative study of one physical system, the pendulum, from the viewpoint of elementary and more advanced classical physics, modern chaotic dynamics, and quantum mechanics. In addition, coupled pendulums and pendulum analogs of superconducting devices are also discussed. Secondly, this book treats the physics of the pendulum within a historical and cultural context, showing, for example, that the pendulum has been intimately connected with studies of the earth's density, the earth's motion, and timekeeping. While primarily a physics book, the work provides significant added interest through the use of relevant cultural and historical vignettes. This approach offers an alternative to the usual modern physics courses. The text is amply illustrated and augmented by exercises at the end of each chapter.

The previous edition of this text was the first to provide a quantitative introduction to chaos and nonlinear dynamics at the undergraduate level. It was widely praised for the clarity of writing and for the unique and effective way in which the authors presented the basic ideas. These same qualities characterize this revised and expanded second edition. Interest in chaotic dynamics has grown explosively in recent years. Applications to practically every scientific field have had a far-reaching impact. As in the first edition, the authors present all the main features of chaotic dynamics using the damped, driven pendulum as the primary model. This second edition includes additional material on the analysis and characterization of chaotic data, and applications of chaos. This new edition of Chaotic Dynamics can be used as a text for courses on chaos for physics and engineering students at the second- and third-year level.

Chaos: A Program Collection for the PC presents an outstanding selection of executable programs with introductory texts to chaos theory and its simulation. Students in physics, mathematics, and engineering will find a thorough introduction to fundamentals and applications in this field. Many numerical experiments and suggestions for further studies help the reader to become familiar with this fascinating topic. The second edition includes one CD-ROM, the executable programs are Windows 95 compatible.