CHAOS: The Amazing Science of The Unpredictable

CHAOS: The Amazing Science of The Unpredictable written by James Gleick, published by Vintage Books in 1998 is a popular science book which has been presented in a layman's language. The book takes an attempt to break the artificial boundaries that separate scientific disciplines because science is the global nature of systems and chaos has got together thinkers from various wheels that have been separate.

Chaos poses problems that defy accepted ways of working science. James Gleick was science reporter and editor of New York Times. It is written after a long observation of scientific phenomenon and decades of reporting on different science verticals. The book is divided on the basis of different themes of chaos like in the chapter "The Butterfly Effect", he discusses the story of Edward Lorenz, which talks about the famous Lorenz curve study of weather prediction. The story of how he discovered that the weather behaviour was dependent on the initial conditions. A small change in initial condition can lead to huge change somewhere else. The description of how he set up his instruments to monitor changes in early 1960s when technical knowhow on computers was not much developed is revealing.

The chapter "Evolution" discusses how the study of chaos picked up across the institutions and different disciplines and how it was opposed tooth and nail from various quarters within the scientific society. In fact, in many places, the proposals were turned down and articles were refused publications in the journals. The chapter, "A Geometry of Nature" discusses fractal theory. In the chapter "Strange attractors", the author states that wild patterns disrupt the boundary between fluid and solid. In fact for a pretty long time, turbulance was such a problem that physicists have relegated the study of turbulence to mathematicians. The study of fluid on top surface was understandable but when it came to flow, all the laws of physics were incapable of explanation. The chapter is such an interesting read and lucidly explained that even if one is not from a science background one can have a good grasp of fluid dynamics and turbulence. He writes,

"Theorists conduct experiments with their brains. Experimenters have to use their hands, too. Theorists are thinkers, experimenters are craftsman. The theorist needs no accomplice. The experimenter has to muster graduate students, cajole machinists and flatter lab assistants. The theorists operate in a pristine place free of noise, of vibration, of dirt. The experimenter develops an intimacy with matter as a sculptor does with the clay, battling it, shaping it, and engaging it. The experimenters' lovers sweat, complain, fart."

In the chapter "Inner rhythm", he writes,

"The paragon of a complex dynamical system and to many scientists, therefore, the touchstone of any approach to complexity is the human body. No object of study available to physicists offers such a cacophony of counterrhythmic motion on scales from macroscopic to microscopic: motion of muscles, of fluids, of currents, of fibers, of cells. No physical system has lent itself to such an obsessive brand of reductionism: every organ has its own microstructure and its own chemistry...".

After studying the different systems and organs of the body, the scientists zeroed in on heart as a dynamical system of vital interest and they studied comprehensively. The discussion on heart beat and its movement is presented in new light on how the fibrillation and movement of heart are related. Fibrillation is a disorder of a complex system, just as mental disorders – whether or not they have chemical roots – are disorders of a complex system.

The book ends with discussion on "Chaos and beyond" in which he discusses how the discipline boundaries have to be broken for study of chaos and every discipline has much to offer and gain from its study. It is a compulsive read to expand one's horizon and see the magic of chaos from an entirely new perspective.