Numerical experiments over the last thirty years have revealed that simple nonlinear systems can have surprising and complicated behaviours. Nonlinear phenomena include waves that behave as particles, deterministic equations having irregular, unpredictable solutions, and the formation of spatial structures from an isotropic medium.
The applied mathematics of nonlinear phenomena has provided metaphors and models for a variety of physical process: solitons have been described in biological macromolecules as well as in hydrodynamic systems; irregular activity that has been identified with chaos has been observed in continuously stirred chemical flow reactors as well as in convecting fluids; nonlinear reaction diffusion systems have been used to account for the formation of spatial patterns in homogeneous chemical systems as well as biological morphogenesis; and discrete-time and discrete-space nonlinear systems (cellular automata) provide metaphors for processes ranging from the microworld of particle physics to patterned activity in computing neural and self-replication genetic systems.
Nonlinear Science: Theory and Applications will deal with all areas of nonlinear science - its mathematics, methods and applications in the biological, chemical, engineering and physical sciences.
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Last updated by allan@amsta.leeds.ac.uk: 15th February 1996.