A01=Florin Diacu
A01=Philip J. Holmes
Acta Mathematica
Addition
Analogy
Andrey Kolmogorov
Approximation
Astronomy
Author_Florin Diacu
Author_Philip J. Holmes
Bureau des Longitudes
Calculation
Cantor set
Career
Category=PBWS
Category=PGC
Celestial mechanics
Center of mass (relativistic)
Chaos theory
Classical mechanics
Computation
Conjecture
Constant of motion
Differential equation
Differential geometry
Dynamical system
Elliptic orbit
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
Equation
General knowledge
Geometry
Homoclinic orbit
Hypothesis
Idealization
Initial condition
Instability
Instant
Inverse iteration
Iteration
Jacques Laskar
Karl Weierstrass
Lebesgue measure
Lecture
Leopold Kronecker
Line segment
Linear differential equation
Linearization
Mathematician
Mathematics
Modern physics
N-body problem
Niles Eldredge
Nonlinear system
Orbit
Oscillation
Parameter
Periodic function
Phase space
Physicist
Probability theory
Quantity
Result
Scientist
Sequence
Series expansion
Special case
Stephen Smale
Symbolic dynamics
Systems theory
Theogony
Theorem
Theory
Three-body problem
Three-dimensional space (mathematics)
Two-body problem
Two-dimensional space
Variable (mathematics)
Product details
- ISBN 9780691005454
- Weight: 340g
- Dimensions: 197 x 254mm
- Publication Date: 28 Mar 1999
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Celestial Encounters is for anyone who has ever wondered about the foundations of chaos. In 1888, the 34-year-old Henri Poincare submitted a paper that was to change the course of science, but not before it underwent significant changes itself. "The Three-Body Problem and the Equations of Dynamics" won a prize sponsored by King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway and the journal Acta Mathematica, but after accepting the prize, Poincare found a serious mistake in his work. While correcting it, he discovered the phenomenon of chaos. Starting with the story of Poincare's work, Florin Diacu and Philip Holmes trace the history of attempts to solve the problems of celestial mechanics first posed in Isaac Newton's Principia in 1686. In describing how mathematical rigor was brought to bear on one of our oldest fascinations--the motions of the heavens--they introduce the people whose ideas led to the flourishing field now called nonlinear dynamics. In presenting the modern theory of dynamical systems, the models underlying much of modern science are described pictorially, using the geometrical language invented by Poincare.
More generally, the authors reflect on mathematical creativity and the roles that chance encounters, politics, and circumstance play in it.
Florin Diacu is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Victoria in Canada. Philip Holmes, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is Professor of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics at Princeton University, where he directs the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics.
