The Nonlinear Universe: Chaos, Emergence, Life

Alwyn C. Scott

2007년 10월 · Springer Science & Business Media

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It has been suggested that the big questions of science are answered – that science has entered a “twilight age” where all the important knowledge is known and only the details need mopping up. And yet, the unprecedented progress in science and technology in the twentieth century has raised qu- tions that weren’t conceived of a century ago. This book argues that, far from being nearlycomplete, the storyof sciencehas many morechapters,yet unwritten. With the perspective of the century’s advance, it’s as if we have climbed a mountain and can see just how much broader the story is. Instead of asking how an apple falls from a tree, as Isaac Newton did in the17thcentury,wecannowask:Whatisthefundamentalnatureofanapple (matter)? How does an apple (biological organism) form and grow? Whence came the breeze that blew it loose (meteorology)? What in a physical sense (synaptic ?rings) was the idea that Newton had, and how did it form? A new approach to science that can answer such questions has sprung up in the past 30 years. This approach – known as nonlinear science–ismore than a new ?eld. Put simply, it is the recognition that throughout nature, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Unexpected things happen.

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One of the pioneers in the area, Alwyn Scott entered nonlinear science as a teacher and researcher after completing his doctoral work at MIT in the late 1950s. His research, both experimental and theoretical, has addressed a wide range of topics from nonlinear laser optics to neuroscience. In 1981, Scott was selected as the founding director of the Center for Nonlinear Studies at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was also a founding editor of Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, the first journal devoted exclusively to the area. His other books include Neuroscience: A Mathematical Primer (Springer, New York) and Nonlinear Science: Emergence and Dynamics of Coherent Structures (Oxford University Press) and he served as editor of the recently published Encyclopedia of Nonlinear Science (Routledge). He completed 'The Nonlinear Universe' shortly before his untimely death in January 2007.