Chaos and Determinism: Turbulence as a Paradigm for Complex Systems Converging Toward Final States

by Alexandre Favre, Andre Lichnerowicz, Henri Guitton, Jean Guitton

Overview

In Chaos and Determinism, members of the French Academy from several disciplines — including fluid mechanics, economics, philosophy, theoretcial physics and biology — offer scientific and philosophical analyses of the concepts of order, chaos, and determinism as they emerge in such complex systems as atmosphere, oceans, monetary economic,s and biological organisms. Using turbulence in fluid mechanics as the chief model, the authors describe and explain the behavior of systems that tend toward a particular end-state, such as an attractor in dynamic systems. The result is a unique interdisciplinary study of complex behavior and its philosophical consequences in fluid mechanics, meteorology, oceanography, physics, embryology, genetics, and economics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801849121
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	03/01/1995
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Alexandre Favre is emeritus professor of fluid mechanices at the University of Aix-Marseille.

Henri Guitton is honorary professor of economics at the Sorbonne.

Jean Guitton is honorary professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne.

Andre Lichnerowicz is honorary professor of physical theories at the Collège de France.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Foreword
Preface to the French Edition
Preface to the English Edition
Translator's Note
Part I: Methods, Concepts, Vocabulary
Chapter 1. The Role of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
Chapter 2. Scales, Domains, and Methods of Observation; Structure, Stability, and Regulation
Chapter 3. Turbulence, Systems, Interactions, Nonlinearity, Attractors, and Bifurcations
Chapter 4. Statistical Methods, Averages, Fluctuations, Mean Effects, Correlations, Spectra, and Stages of Fluctuation
Chapter 5. Causality, Determinism, Teleonomy, Necessity, Contingency, and Freedom
Chapter 6. Order and Disorder
Chapter 7. Disordered Chaos and Deterministic Chaos
Chapter 8. Chance and Randomness
Chapter 9.Analogies and Similarities
Part II: Turbulence in Fluid Mechanics
Chapter 10. Fluids and Turbulent Flows
Chapter 11. Turbulent and Nonturbulent Fluid Flows and the Conditions for Determinacy
Chapter 12. The Causes of and Criteria for the Existence of Turbulence: Similarity and Transition
Chapter 13. The Mechanisms and Regulating Mean Effects of Turbulent Flows
Chapter 14. Some Classic Models and Turbulence
Part III: The Atmosphere and the Hydrosphere: The Media of Life
Chapter 15. The Properties of the Hydrosphere and the Atmosphere
Chapter 16. The Mechanisms of the Atmospheric-Hydrospheric System: Determinism, Regulation, and Optimization
Chapter 17. Conclusion
Part IV: Physical Theories: Groups, the Calculus of Variations, Relativity, Statistical Mechanics, and Quantum Mechanics
Chapter 18. Examples of Mathematical Instruments of Though: Groups and the Calculus of Variations
Chapter 19. Relativity
Chapter 20. Statistical Mechanics
Chapter 21. Quantum Mechanics
Part V: Biology
Chapter 22. Teleonomy in Embryology
Chapter 23. The Double Helix and Messenger RNA
Part VI: Economics, Turbulence, and Chaos
Part VII: Conclusions
Chapter 24. General Remarks
Chapter 25. The Interpretation of Phenomena Through Causality and Determinism
Chapter 26. The Interpretation of Phenomena According to Causality, Determinism, and Teleonomy Through Regularization, Optimization, and Convergence Toward Final States
Part VIII: A Philosopher's Reflections
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Julian C. R. Hunt

I found this most unusual book to be very stimulating. It really did achieve its objective of breaking academic barriers.

From the Publisher

I found this most unusual book to be very stimulating. It really did achieve its objective of breaking academic barriers.
—Julian C. R. Hunt, reviewing the French edition

Editorial Reviews

I found this most unusual book to be very stimulating. It really did achieve its objective of breaking academic barriers and showing how researchers in different disciplines are grappling with the same difficulties in using different conceptual and practicalmethodologies, and in explaining their results . . . I found many aspects of my own thinking about fluid mechanics and the philosophy of science changing as I read the book and discussed it with colleagues and friends.
—Julian C. R. Hunt

From the Publisher

A physicist, a mathematician, a biologist, and economist, and a philosopher, having decided from observing the atmosphere and hydrosphere that turbulence was not an accident, an aberration, a violation of order, but a different kind of order with its own rules and patterns, set out to investigate whether turbulence was to be found in other complex systems in physics, mechanics, chemistry, biology, embryology, and social phenomena. Over the course of many informal conversations, their various ideas, like the systems they studied, converged into a conclusion, which they present here. First published in French in 1988. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

I found this most unusual book to be very stimulating. It really did achieve its objective of breaking academic barriers and showing how researchers in different disciplines are grappling with the same difficulties in using different conceptual and practicalmethodologies, and in explaining their results . . . I found many aspects of my own thinking about fluid mechanics and the philosophy of science changing as I read the book and discussed it with colleagues and friends.

Julian C. R. Hunt