The New Scientist Guide to Chaos

As a mathematician, I find it pretty easy to love science. I remember getting into New Scientist magazine during my A-Levels, and being excited by all the cool stories of scientific discovery, and the practical uses of these discoveries. A friend of mine bought a subscription to the magazine for a year, but barely read it. Luckily for me, I frequently stayed over at his after the pub (not like that, although there was a lot of tying up involved…), and as I always woke up before him in the morning I’d sit and read through his back catalogue of magazines, skipping to the best bits. I think we should move on to the book before I say anything incriminating.

The New Scientist Guide to Chaos was published in the mid-eighties, and designed as a guide to how Chaos theory was impacting many areas of science, and the importance of emerging computer technologies in driving these new theories and applications. The publishing date leads to two unavoidable, if slightly amusing, issues with reading this book now, in the early teenies. One is that most of what you’re reading is pretty dated, if theoretically sound. The other is that every now and again, some passage of the book shows up that dates the book in an extremely unflattering manner. One such passage occurs at the end of an essay on weather systems. The author begins to discuss climate change, but points out that any evidence pointing to global warming is still highly doubtful, and as such, scientists are hesitant to make any assertion that would imply the notion of climate change is real.

Despite the occasional reminder of how quickly scientific consensus can change, I really enjoyed the book. One of the reasons I stopped reading New Scientist was that, as my knowledge of Maths, Physics and science in general grew, I felt that it relied too heavily on metaphors and allusions, rather than just explaining what was going on directly. This book has few such problems, with frequent equations, experiments and direct explanations on display. The calibre of writer is also apparent, or at least I think it is - Mandelbrot, a famous Maths guy, writes one of the essays. That means I can assume everyone else is famous, right?

In terms of recommending this book to you, my loyal book clubbers (you are, after all, still loyal after the inappropriate jokes earlier on, aren't you?), it’s a difficult decision. The book is clearly dated, a relic of time, but on the other hand, it tells you a lot more about scientific processes than the last several dozen New Scientists I read. If you’re after a proper science read, Brian Cox’s book is probably a much better option, but for those of us who can't resist indulging in an old love affair, this will do fine.