Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaotic Phenomena: An Introduction

FolJowing the formulation of the laws of mechanics by Newton, Lagrange sought to clarify and emphasize their geometrical character. Poincare and Liapunov successfuIJy developed analytical mechanics further along these lines. In this approach, one represents the evolution of all possible states (positions and momenta) by the flow in phase space, or more efficiently, by mappings on manifolds with a symplectic geometry, and tries to understand qualitative features of this problem, rather than ...