It is a splendid introduction. Not only does it explain accurately and skilfully the fundamentals of chaos theory, but it sketches the theory's colourful history, with entertaining anecdotes about its pioners and provocative asides about the philosophy of science and mathematics. The author presents his subject with a depth commensurate to his decades of experience as a science writer for the New York Times. The following represents my brief research notes in the reading of this work. As the theme of this website will attest, all of my research notes are available for my use on the web.
Chaos breaks across the lines that separate scientific disciplines.
Because it is a science of the global nature of systems, it has brought together thinkers from fields that had been widely separated. Fifteen years ago, science was heading for a crisis of increasing specialization. I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. A chaotic system could be stable if its particular brand of irregularity persisted in the face of small disturbances. The result of mathematical development should be continuously checked against one's own intuition about what constitutes reasonable biological behaviour.