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 Free online edition (HTML, PDF, Word)
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M&T Books (Henry Holt), New York, 1993
With 3.5" IBM-PC disk and 3-D glasses
ISBN 1-55851-298-5
Out of print
An endless succession of beautiful fractal patterns, found automatically by the computer
Over 350 examples — each with its own piece of fractal music
Objects in three, four and higher dimensions, with 3-D stereo images (red/blue glasses included)
Source code in BASIC, C, C++ and Visual BASIC — build the program step by step
Out of print, but the complete text is free online
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Strange Attractors
Creating Patterns in Chaos
J. C. Sprott
Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Praise for Strange Attractors
"Books on computer patterns with such beauty, breadth, and insight are rare. Dr. Sprott's Strange Attractors is chock full of mind-boggling images and valuable information — not only for curious artists, programmers, students and lay people — but also for seasoned researchers. The eclectic Sprott is both a physicist and artist, and with the cold logic of the one and the inspired vision of the other, he covers an array of topics in aesthetics, fractals, and chaos sure to stimulate your imagination and sense of wonder at the incredible vastness of our mathematical universe."
— Clifford A. Pickover, author of Mazes for the Mind and Chaos in Wonderland (full review)
"The most astonishing aspect of chaos is that such a simple process — the repeated application of a single mapping — can produce such complex and beautiful forms. By following Dr. Sprott's original and simple instructions, you can create the elegant enigma of spontaneous complexity for yourself, using a personal computer to discover the strange attractions of Strange Attractors."
— Ian Stewart, author of Does God Play Dice? (full review)
"The book is a bargain for the amateur explorer and seems uniquely interesting as a text for a novel course in computational math, physics, graphics, or art. … I recommend it most highly to all devotees of chaos."
— Ralph H. Abraham, American Journal of Physics 63, 477 (1995) (full review)
About the Book
Strange Attractors: Creating Patterns in Chaos describes a simple method for generating an endless succession of beautiful fractal patterns by iterating simple maps and ordinary differential equations with coefficients chosen automatically by the computer. It contains over 350 examples of such patterns. Each pattern produces a corresponding piece of fractal music.
The book describes methods for visualizing objects in three, four, and higher dimensions and explains how to produce 3-D stereoscopic images on the computer screen using red/blue glasses, which were included with the book. The book and accompanying disk contain source code in BASIC, C, C++, Visual BASIC for Windows, and QuickBASIC for Macintosh, as well as a ready-to-run IBM-PC program.
Free Online Edition
The book is out of print, but the full manuscript is available in HTML, PDF and Microsoft Word format, along with all the figures and the programs from the disk. More on the book's home page.
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