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World Scientific, 2005 · 192 pages · with CD-ROM
ISBN 981-256-400-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 981-256-401-2 (paperback)
A coffee-table book where art, poetry and science meet
Robin Chapman's poems paired with full-color computer art from strange attractors, Julia sets and iterated function systems
Definitions of 39 key terms, a mathematical appendix — and a quiz
CD-ROM with the poet reading 13 poems and 1,000 images of chaos art
Foreword by Clifford A. Pickover
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Images of a Complex World
The Art and Poetry of Chaos
Robin Chapman and J. C. Sprott
Foreword by Clifford A. Pickover
Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Praise for Images of a Complex World
"Complexity has spread like wildfire through many disciplines, revolutionizing the way we view the world around us. Robin Chapman and Clint Sprott celebrate the eclectic nature of Complexity with this beautiful and educational journey through science, art and literature."
— Richard Taylor, Professor of Physics, Psychology, and Art, University of Oregon
"Combining Julien Clinton Sprott's exquisite computer art — generated from equations that contain chaos — with Robin Chapman's deeply intelligent and moving poems — by turns meditative, narrative, descriptive, witty — this book reveals the elegant simplicity at the heart of infinite detail and variety. … In our increasingly fragmented world, where science and poetry, physics and art, may seem strange bedfellows, Chapman and Sprott's fertile collaboration has produced a book of wonders, a wonder of a book."
— Ronald Wallace, Professor of Poetry and English, University of Wisconsin–Madison
"This book is the future already here. On its pages, beauty and meaning are one, and art, poetry and science dance together in perfect time."
— Jesse Lee Kercheval, Professor of English, University of Wisconsin–Madison
"Though Chapman and Sprott make modest claims for their work, it is truly a stunning achievement."
— Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences
"Buy it or have your library purchase it, share it with your students, and dip into it when your creative pump needs priming."
— The Mathematical Intelligencer
About the Book
This coffee-table book will delight and inform general readers curious about ideas of chaos, fractals, and nonlinear complex systems. Developed out of ten years of interdisciplinary seminars in chaos and complex systems at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, it features multiple ways of knowing: Robin Chapman's poems of everyday experience of change in a complex world, associated metaphorically with Julien Clinton Sprott's full-color computer art generated from billions of versions of only three simple equations for strange attractors, Julia sets, and iterated function systems.
Sprott adds definitions of 39 key terms, a mathematical appendix, and even a multiple-choice quiz to test understanding. The accompanying CD-ROM has the poet reading 13 poems and 1,000 images of chaos art from which slide shows can be generated and 100 high-resolution posters created. The foreword is by Clifford A. Pickover, author of A Passion for Mathematics. Robin Chapman was the 2005 winner of the Posner Poetry Award from the Council of Wisconsin Writers.
Contents
1. Dynamical Systems
2. Viewing Dynamics
3. Where It All Ends
4. Routes to Chaos
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5. Images of Chaos
6. Chaos and Predictability
7. Truth and Beauty
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More About the Book
Reviews, sample images, a slide show and an interview with Robin Chapman are on the book's home page.
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