A hundred years ago it became known that deterministic systems can exhibit very complex behavior. By proving that ordinary differential equations can exhibit strange behavior, Poincare undermined the founda- tions of Newtonian physics and opened a window to the modern theory of nonlinear dynamics and chaos. Although in the 1930s and 1940s strange behavior was observed in many physical systems, the notion that this phenomenon was inherent in deterministic systems was never suggested. Even with the powerful results of S. Smale in the 1960s, complicated be- havior of deterministic systems...
A hundred years ago it became known that deterministic systems can exhibit very complex behavior. By proving that ordinary differential equations can ...