Reviews for Chance and chaos

The average rating for Chance and chaos based on 4 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-06-18 00:00:00 Shane Brule With their overreaching claims, lousy justifications for them and an almost dreamy language, most popular science books strongly resembles to this disgusting object. Fortunately, this book is an exception. David Ruelle, a recipient of the prestigious Boltzmann award, the highest award in Statistical Mechanics, a branch of theoretical physics, is at his best in this book. One of the founding fathers of the theory of onset of turbulence, Ruelle describes in this book how chance and chaos shatters the deterministic model of the Universe. And he doesn't forget to warn the reader: A last word of caution. Don't embark in general abstract discussions as to whether physics is deterministic, or probabilistic, local or not, and so on. The answer depends on the physical theory considered, and how determinism, or chance, or locality, is introduced in this theory. A meaningful physical discussion always requires an operational background. Either this is provided by an existing theory, or you have to give it yourself by the sufficiently explicit description of an experiment that can, at least in principle, be performed. He introduces all the concepts in understandable terms in the book and then proceeds to elucidate them further by giving many examples. I find this book a pleasure to read. Also his wit and sarcasm are abundant in this book. A slightly long but amusing example: Eternal return is something you will see in moderately complicated systems... Take a flea and put it on a particular square of a chequerboard, with a fence to prevent the flea from escaping. Your flea will actively jump around and after a while visit again the square from which it started. This was the case for a moderately complicated system. Now take a hundred fleas and provide them with name or number tags. Put one flea on each square of your chequerboard and watch. How long does it take until all fleas come back simultaneously to the squares from which they started? ... If you do not have a hundred fleas at your disposal, you could do a computer simulation of the experiment, making reasonable assumptions on how fleas jump around. Then you could write a technical paper on your findings, with a title like "A new theory of irreversibility." If you are going to submit it for publication in a physics journal, don't be bashful. Start boldly with "We have discovered a novel mechanism for irreversibility, etc." or something of that sort, and submit it for publication in the Physical Review. They will reject it, of course, and send you copies of three referee's reports saying it's rubbish, and explaining why. Don't be put off; rewrite your paper, taking into account the remarks of the referees, and resubmit it, with a moderately indignant letter to the editors, pointing out the contradictions between the reports of the different referees. After your paper has been sent back and forth a couple more times, driving a few referees crazy, it will be published in the Physical Review, and if you were not already a physicist, you will have become one. Don't be deluded. I, a theoretical physicist, don't work like this, never. But, again, the idea is not bad, after all... May be in a next paper... Highly recommended!

Review # 2 was written on 2009-06-29 00:00:00 Diarmuid Sands This book goes down like a high school cafeteria salad bar - plenty of variety but overwhelmingly mediocre. It seems as though Ruelle simply sat down one Saturday and thought, "Hey, I think I'll write a book" and proceeded to regurgitate his stream of consciousness onto paper for the next several hours. Ruelle gives a somewhat shallow introduction to a huge variety of interesting topics but jumps from one to the next so fast that nothing sticks. "Chance and Chaos" reads more like a series of blog posts than a unified book. This book might be useful to someone who has never heard of a Turing machine, algorithmic complexity, or sensitive dependence on initial conditions but those who have will likely walk away unsatisfied. Ruelle also harbors an odd obsession with Freudian psychoanalysis and awkwardly cites it as often as possible. I had thought Freudian psychology held about as much scientific clout as intelligent design but perhaps it's still quite a contender in continental Europe. On the upside, Ruelle is an entertaining writer and offers many interesting and effective analogies for difficult concepts as well as an abundance of color commentary and stories on how science is (or should be) done. I plan on looking into some of his more focused and rigorous texts and papers on statistical physics and chaos, as I suspect he might shine when reined in a bit. And so, my search for good popular books on information and chaos continues...

Review # 3 was written on 2014-06-18 00:00:00 Amanda Cardinali With their overreaching claims, lousy justifications for them and an almost dreamy language, most popular science books strongly resembles to this disgusting object. Fortunately, this book is an exception. David Ruelle, a recipient of the prestigious Boltzmann award, the highest award in Statistical Mechanics, a branch of theoretical physics, is at his best in this book. One of the founding fathers of the theory of onset of turbulence, Ruelle describes in this book how chance and chaos shatters the deterministic model of the Universe. And he doesn't forget to warn the reader: A last word of caution. Don't embark in general abstract discussions as to whether physics is deterministic, or probabilistic, local or not, and so on. The answer depends on the physical theory considered, and how determinism, or chance, or locality, is introduced in this theory. A meaningful physical discussion always requires an operational background. Either this is provided by an existing theory, or you have to give it yourself by the sufficiently explicit description of an experiment that can, at least in principle, be performed. He introduces all the concepts in understandable terms in the book and then proceeds to elucidate them further by giving many examples. I find this book a pleasure to read. Also his wit and sarcasm are abundant in this book. A slightly long but amusing example: Eternal return is something you will see in moderately complicated systems... Take a flea and put it on a particular square of a chequerboard, with a fence to prevent the flea from escaping. Your flea will actively jump around and after a while visit again the square from which it started. This was the case for a moderately complicated system. Now take a hundred fleas and provide them with name or number tags. Put one flea on each square of your chequerboard and watch. How long does it take until all fleas come back simultaneously to the squares from which they started? ... If you do not have a hundred fleas at your disposal, you could do a computer simulation of the experiment, making reasonable assumptions on how fleas jump around. Then you could write a technical paper on your findings, with a title like "A new theory of irreversibility." If you are going to submit it for publication in a physics journal, don't be bashful. Start boldly with "We have discovered a novel mechanism for irreversibility, etc." or something of that sort, and submit it for publication in the Physical Review. They will reject it, of course, and send you copies of three referee's reports saying it's rubbish, and explaining why. Don't be put off; rewrite your paper, taking into account the remarks of the referees, and resubmit it, with a moderately indignant letter to the editors, pointing out the contradictions between the reports of the different referees. After your paper has been sent back and forth a couple more times, driving a few referees crazy, it will be published in the Physical Review, and if you were not already a physicist, you will have become one. Don't be deluded. I, a theoretical physicist, don't work like this, never. But, again, the idea is not bad, after all... May be in a next paper... Highly recommended!

Review # 4 was written on 2009-06-29 00:00:00 Francisco Garcia This book goes down like a high school cafeteria salad bar - plenty of variety but overwhelmingly mediocre. It seems as though Ruelle simply sat down one Saturday and thought, "Hey, I think I'll write a book" and proceeded to regurgitate his stream of consciousness onto paper for the next several hours. Ruelle gives a somewhat shallow introduction to a huge variety of interesting topics but jumps from one to the next so fast that nothing sticks. "Chance and Chaos" reads more like a series of blog posts than a unified book. This book might be useful to someone who has never heard of a Turing machine, algorithmic complexity, or sensitive dependence on initial conditions but those who have will likely walk away unsatisfied. Ruelle also harbors an odd obsession with Freudian psychoanalysis and awkwardly cites it as often as possible. I had thought Freudian psychology held about as much scientific clout as intelligent design but perhaps it's still quite a contender in continental Europe. On the upside, Ruelle is an entertaining writer and offers many interesting and effective analogies for difficult concepts as well as an abundance of color commentary and stories on how science is (or should be) done. I plan on looking into some of his more focused and rigorous texts and papers on statistical physics and chaos, as I suspect he might shine when reined in a bit. And so, my search for good popular books on information and chaos continues...