Chaos; Making of a New Science

New York: Penguin Books, 1988. Sixth Printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Good. xi, [3], 352, [2] pages. Illustrations (some in color). Notes on Sources and Further Reading. Index. Signed by author on title page. Cover has some wear, soiling and is scuffed at back. Some page soiling. James Gleick (born August 1, 1954) is an American author and historian of science whose work has chronicled the cultural impact of modern technology. Recognized for his writing about complex subjects through the techniques of narrative nonfiction, he has been called "one of the great science writers of all time". Gleick's books include the international bestsellers Chaos: Making a New Science (1987) and The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (2011). Three of his books have been Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists; and The Information was awarded the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2012 and the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books 2012. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages. Gleick's writing style has been described as a combination of "clear mind, magpie-styled research and explanatory verve." After the publication of Chaos, Gleick collaborated with the photographer Eliot Porter on Nature's Chaos and with developers at Autodesk on Chaos: The Software. He was the McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University in 1989-90. His next books included two biographies, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, and Isaac Newton, which John Banville said would "surely stand as the definitive study for a very long time to come." Gleick is active on the boards of the Authors Guild and the Key West Literary Seminar. James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the twentieth century's third revolution. This new science offers a way of seeing order and pattern where formerly only the random, the erratic, the unpredictable--in short, the chaotic--had been observed. Chaos: Making a New Science is a debut non-fiction book by James Gleick that initially introduced the principles and early development of the chaos theory to the public. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, and was shortlisted for the Science Book Prize in 1989. The first popular book about chaos theory, it describes the Mandelbrot set, Julia sets, and Lorenz attractors without using complicated mathematics. It portrays the efforts of dozens of scientists whose separate work contributed to the developing field. The text remains in print and is widely used as an introduction to the topic for the mathematical layperson. An enhanced ebook edition was released by Open Road Media in 2011, adding embedded video and hyperlinked notes. Robert Sapolsky said that, "Chaos is the first book since Baby Beluga where I've gotten to the last page and immediately started reading it over again from the front." Freeman Dyson praised it as a popular account.