Chaos in Discrete Dynamical Systems


Book Description

The materials in the book and on the accompanying disc are not solely developed with only the researcher and professional in mind, but also with consideration for the student: most of this material has been class-tested by the authors. The book is packed with some 100 computer graphics to illustrate the material, and the CD-ROM contains full-colour animations tied directly to the subject matter of the book itself. The cross-platform CD also contains the program ENDO, which enables users to create their own 2-D imagery with X-Windows. Maple scripts are provided to allow readers to work directly with the code from which the graphics in the book were taken.







Dynamical Systems in Neuroscience


Book Description

Explains the relationship of electrophysiology, nonlinear dynamics, and the computational properties of neurons, with each concept presented in terms of both neuroscience and mathematics and illustrated using geometrical intuition. In order to model neuronal behavior or to interpret the results of modeling studies, neuroscientists must call upon methods of nonlinear dynamics. This book offers an introduction to nonlinear dynamical systems theory for researchers and graduate students in neuroscience. It also provides an overview of neuroscience for mathematicians who want to learn the basic facts of electrophysiology. Dynamical Systems in Neuroscience presents a systematic study of the relationship of electrophysiology, nonlinear dynamics, and computational properties of neurons. It emphasizes that information processing in the brain depends not only on the electrophysiological properties of neurons but also on their dynamical properties. The book introduces dynamical systems, starting with one- and two-dimensional Hodgkin-Huxley-type models and continuing to a description of bursting systems. Each chapter proceeds from the simple to the complex, and provides sample problems at the end. The book explains all necessary mathematical concepts using geometrical intuition; it includes many figures and few equations, making it especially suitable for non-mathematicians. Each concept is presented in terms of both neuroscience and mathematics, providing a link between the two disciplines. Nonlinear dynamical systems theory is at the core of computational neuroscience research, but it is not a standard part of the graduate neuroscience curriculum—or taught by math or physics department in a way that is suitable for students of biology. This book offers neuroscience students and researchers a comprehensive account of concepts and methods increasingly used in computational neuroscience. An additional chapter on synchronization, with more advanced material, can be found at the author's website, www.izhikevich.com.




Chance and Chaos


Book Description

How do scientists look at chance, or randomness, and chaos in physical systems? In answering this question for a general audience, Ruelle writes in the best French tradition: he has produced an authoritative and elegant book--a model of clarity, succinctness, and a humor bordering at times on the sardonic.




Geometry from Dynamics, Classical and Quantum


Book Description

This book describes, by using elementary techniques, how some geometrical structures widely used today in many areas of physics, like symplectic, Poisson, Lagrangian, Hermitian, etc., emerge from dynamics. It is assumed that what can be accessed in actual experiences when studying a given system is just its dynamical behavior that is described by using a family of variables ("observables" of the system). The book departs from the principle that ''dynamics is first'' and then tries to answer in what sense the sole dynamics determines the geometrical structures that have proved so useful to describe the dynamics in so many important instances. In this vein it is shown that most of the geometrical structures that are used in the standard presentations of classical dynamics (Jacobi, Poisson, symplectic, Hamiltonian, Lagrangian) are determined, though in general not uniquely, by the dynamics alone. The same program is accomplished for the geometrical structures relevant to describe quantum dynamics. Finally, it is shown that further properties that allow the explicit description of the dynamics of certain dynamical systems, like integrability and super integrability, are deeply related to the previous development and will be covered in the last part of the book. The mathematical framework used to present the previous program is kept to an elementary level throughout the text, indicating where more advanced notions will be needed to proceed further. A family of relevant examples is discussed at length and the necessary ideas from geometry are elaborated along the text. However no effort is made to present an ''all-inclusive'' introduction to differential geometry as many other books already exist on the market doing exactly that. However, the development of the previous program, considered as the posing and solution of a generalized inverse problem for geometry, leads to new ways of thinking and relating some of the most conspicuous geometrical structures appearing in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics.




Dynamics


Book Description

The study of chaos provides a new paradigm for the sciences, and Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior is a comprehensive exploration of this important branch of mathematics. The book shows a new way to learn a new mathematics -- it is a visual tour that's accessible to a wide range of academic levels. Imaginative, full color graphics translate dynamical systems theory for the layman as well as the seasoned researcher. Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior is a profusely illustrated, inventive book designed for anyone who wants to learn more about dynamical system theory. This is the first part of a four part series, which is also published as a single volume.




Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos


Book Description

Ein angesehener Bestseller - jetzt in der 2.aktualisierten Auflage! In diesem Buch finden Sie die aktuellsten Forschungsergebnisse auf dem Gebiet nichtlinearer Dynamik und Chaos, einem der am schnellsten wachsenden Teilgebiete der Mathematik. Die seit der ersten Auflage hinzugekommenen Erkenntnisse sind in einem zusätzlichen Kapitel übersichtlich zusammengefasst.




Geometry and Billiards


Book Description

Mathematical billiards describe the motion of a mass point in a domain with elastic reflections off the boundary or, equivalently, the behavior of rays of light in a domain with ideally reflecting boundary. From the point of view of differential geometry, the billiard flow is the geodesic flow on a manifold with boundary. This book is devoted to billiards in their relation with differential geometry, classical mechanics, and geometrical optics. Topics covered include variational principles of billiard motion, symplectic geometry of rays of light and integral geometry, existence and nonexistence of caustics, optical properties of conics and quadrics and completely integrable billiards, periodic billiard trajectories, polygonal billiards, mechanisms of chaos in billiard dynamics, and the lesser-known subject of dual (or outer) billiards. The book is based on an advanced undergraduate topics course. Minimum prerequisites are the standard material covered in the first two years of college mathematics (the entire calculus sequence, linear algebra). However, readers should show some mathematical maturity and rely on their mathematical common sense. A unique feature of the book is the coverage of many diverse topics related to billiards, for example, evolutes and involutes of plane curves, the four-vertex theorem, a mathematical theory of rainbows, distribution of first digits in various sequences, Morse theory, the Poincare recurrence theorem, Hilbert's fourth problem, Poncelet porism, and many others. There are approximately 100 illustrations. The book is suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers interested in ergodic theory and geometry. This volume has been copublished with the Mathematics Advanced Study Semesters program at Penn State.




Complex Dynamics and Renormalization


Book Description

Addressing researchers and graduate students in the active meeting ground of analysis, geometry, and dynamics, this book presents a study of renormalization of quadratic polynomials and a rapid introduction to techniques in complex dynamics. Its central concern is the structure of an infinitely renormalizable quadratic polynomial f(z) = z2 + c. As discovered by Feigenbaum, such a mapping exhibits a repetition of form at infinitely many scales. Drawing on universal estimates in hyperbolic geometry, this work gives an analysis of the limiting forms that can occur and develops a rigidity criterion for the polynomial f. This criterion supports general conjectures about the behavior of rational maps and the structure of the Mandelbrot set. The course of the main argument entails many facets of modern complex dynamics. Included are foundational results in geometric function theory, quasiconformal mappings, and hyperbolic geometry. Most of the tools are discussed in the setting of general polynomials and rational maps.




Holomorphic Dynamical Systems


Book Description

The theory of holomorphic dynamical systems is a subject of increasing interest in mathematics, both for its challenging problems and for its connections with other branches of pure and applied mathematics. A holomorphic dynamical system is the datum of a complex variety and a holomorphic object (such as a self-map or a vector ?eld) acting on it. The study of a holomorphic dynamical system consists in describing the asymptotic behavior of the system, associating it with some invariant objects (easy to compute) which describe the dynamics and classify the possible holomorphic dynamical systems supported by a given manifold. The behavior of a holomorphic dynamical system is pretty much related to the geometry of the ambient manifold (for instance, - perbolic manifolds do no admit chaotic behavior, while projective manifolds have a variety of different chaotic pictures). The techniques used to tackle such pr- lems are of variouskinds: complexanalysis, methodsof real analysis, pluripotential theory, algebraic geometry, differential geometry, topology. To cover all the possible points of view of the subject in a unique occasion has become almost impossible, and the CIME session in Cetraro on Holomorphic Dynamical Systems was not an exception.