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FROM ORDER TO CHAOS
Essays: Critical, Chaotic and Otherwise
by Leo P Kadanoff (The University of Chicago, USA)
Table of Contents (98k)
General Introduction (269k)
Section A: Fundamental Issues in Hydrodynamics, Condensed Matter and Field Theory (7,445k)
Leo Kadanoff is a theoretical physicist who has done research on chaos theory, superconductivity, phase transitions, fluid flow, the sociology of urban areas, heat transfer in missiles and elementary particle physics. During the last fifteen years, he has devoted considerable effort to the development of teaching programs for undergraduates based upon the use of small computers. Much of this teaching program has been an outgrowth of his interest in the description of chaos in physical systems. In a series of columns for Physics Today, he has written about the place of the physical sciences in the broader community. Kadanoff is probably best known for his contributions to the ideas of 'universality' and scale invariance in condensed matter systems.
He got his academic training at Harvard University, finishing with a Ph.D. in Physics in 1960. After that, he worked at the Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, the University of Illinois, Cambridge University, Brown University and the University of Chicago. Kadanoff has been at Chicago since 1978, where he is now the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor of Physics and Mathematics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received a large number of awards and honors. Nonetheless, he feels himself to be an iconoclast and a non-establishment figure.
This book is a compilation of the review papers, expositions and some of the technical works of Leo Kadanoff, a theoretical physicist. The objective is to put together a group of not-too-technical writing in which he discusses some issues in condensed matter physics, hydrodynamics, applied mathematics and national policy.
The volume is divided into four sections. The first section contains review papers on hydrodynamics, condensed matter physics and field theory. Next is a selection of papers on scaling and universality, particularly as applied to phase changes. A change of pace is provided by a series of papers on the critical analysis of simulation models of urban economic and social development. The book concludes with a series of recent papers on turbulence and chaos. Each major section has an introduction designed to tie the work together and to provide perspective on the subject matter.
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