Dynamics of Hierarchical Systems

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XV

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2. Introduction

   • John S. Nicolis

   Pages 1-8

3. Preliminaries from Nonlinear Dynamics and Statistical Physics

   • John S. Nicolis

   Pages 9-76

4. The Role of Spherical Electromagnetic Waves as Information Carriers

   • John S. Nicolis

   Pages 77-120

5. Elements of Information and Coding Theory, with Applications

   • John S. Nicolis

   Pages 121-216

6. Elements of Game Theory, with Applications

   • John S. Nicolis

   Pages 217-261

7. Stochasticity Due to Deterministic Dynamics in Three- or Higher-Dimensional Space: Chaos and Strange Attractors

   • John S. Nicolis

   Pages 262-341

8. Epilogue: Relevance of Chaos to Biology and Related Fields

   • John S. Nicolis

   Pages 342-361

9. Back Matter

   Pages 363-397

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The main aim of these lectures is to tri gger the interest of the restless under­ graduate student of physical, mathematical, engineering, or biological sciences in the new and exciting multidisciplinary area of the evolution of "large-scale" dynamical systems. This text grew out of a synthesis of rather heterogeneous mate­ rial that I presented on various occasions and in different contexts. For example, from lectures given since 1972 to first- and final-year undergraduate and first­ year graduate students at the School of Engineering of the University of Patras and from informal seminars offered to an international group of graduate and post­ doctoral students and faculty members at the University of Stuttgart in the aca­ demic year 1982-1983. Those who search for rigor or even formality in this book are bound to be rather disappointed. My intention is to start from "scratch" if possible, keeping the rea­ soning heuristic and tied as closely as possible to physical intuition; I assume as prerequisites just basic knowledge of (classical) physics (at the level of the Berkeley series or the Feynman lectures), calculus, and some elements of probabil­ ity theory. This does not mean that I intended to write an easy book, but rather to eliminate any difficulty for an eager reader who, in spite of incomplete for­ malistic training, would like to become acquainted with the physical ideas and con­ cepts underlying the evolution and dynamics of complex systems.

• algorithms
• bifurcation
• chaos
• classical statistical mechanics
• complex system
• computer simulation
• cosmology
• dynamical system
• dynamical systems
• electromagnetic wave
• equilibrium
• statistical mechanics
• statistical physics
• thermodynamics
• vacuum

• Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Patras, Patras, Greece

  John S. Nicolis

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