Celestial Encounters: The Origins of Chaos and Stability (Princeton Science Library (Paperback)) (Paperback)
$30.28 - Save $1.67 (5%) - RRP $31.95 Free shipping worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 48 hours | |Short Description for Celestial Encounters Presenting the story of Poincare's work, this book traces the history of attempts to solve the problems of celestial mechanics posed in Isaac Newton's "Principia" in 1686. It introduces the people whose ideas led to the field called nonlinear dynamics.
Full description- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Published: 08 March 1999
- Format: Paperback 256 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Cybernetics & Systems Theory | Applied Mathematics | Chaos Theory | Astronomy, Space & Time | Theoretical & Mathematical Astronomy | Astrophysics
- ISBN 13: 9780691005454 ISBN 10: 0691005451
- Sales rank: 1,087,693
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Full description for Celestial Encounters
Celestial Encounters is for anyone who has ever wondered about the foundations of chaos. In 1888, the 34-year-old Henri Poincar submitted a paper that was to change the course of science, but not before it underwent significant changes itself. "The Three-Body Problem and the Equations of Dynamics" won a prize sponsored by King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway and the journal Acta Mathematica, but after accepting the prize, Poincar found a serious mistake in his work. While correcting it, he discovered the phenomenon of chaos. Starting with the story of Poincar's work, Florin Diacu and Philip Holmes trace the history of attempts to solve the problems of celestial mechanics first posed in Isaac Newton's Principia in 1686. In describing how mathematical rigor was brought to bear on one of our oldest fascinations--the motions of the heavens--they introduce the people whose ideas led to the flourishing field now called nonlinear dynamics. In presenting the modern theory of dynamical systems, the models underlying much of modern science are described pictorially, using the geometrical language invented by Poincar. More generally, the authors reflect on mathematical creativity and the roles that chance encounters, politics, and circumstance play in it.
