A review by xerxes314
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering by Steven Strogatz
4.0
Very clear and engaging text on nonlinear dynamics with lots of great examples from real-world systems. Rarely do you read a textbook and think to yourself "Wow, I can't wait to find time to work on some of these homework problems." The descriptions often make use of geometric intuition alongside more rigorous derivations, and when the derivations get too difficult, the author omits them in favor of references to more technical works.
One little gripe: the figures are sometimes kind of lousy or copied from much older works from as far back as the '80s and '90s. I could make better figures in a couple hours (and did while working the exercises), so the author could probably have found the time to do so (or had a grad student do it). Some of the problem may be the desire to make everything compatible with two-tone black-and-white for the paper editions. It's a shame, since the fractals are so beautiful when you render them nicely.
A second little gripe: The e-book displays equations using little graphic inserts, which are often completely the wrong size. The result is readable enough, but not very attractive.
One little gripe: the figures are sometimes kind of lousy or copied from much older works from as far back as the '80s and '90s. I could make better figures in a couple hours (and did while working the exercises), so the author could probably have found the time to do so (or had a grad student do it). Some of the problem may be the desire to make everything compatible with two-tone black-and-white for the paper editions. It's a shame, since the fractals are so beautiful when you render them nicely.
A second little gripe: The e-book displays equations using little graphic inserts, which are often completely the wrong size. The result is readable enough, but not very attractive.