Since 1972 the Schools on Nonlinear Physics in Gorky have been a meeting place for Soviet scientists working in this field. Instead of producing for the first time English proceedings it has been decided to present a good cross section of nonlinear physics in the USSR. Thus the participants at the last School were invited to provide English reviews and research papers for these two volumes (which in the years to come will be followed by the proceedings of forthcoming schools). The second volume deals with dynamical chaos in classical and quantum systems, with evolution in chemical...

Since 1972 the Schools on Nonlinear Physics in Gorky have been a meeting place for Soviet Scientists working in this field. Since 1989 the proceedings appear in English. They present a good cross section of nonlinear physics in the USSR. This third volume emerged from material presented at the 1989 School. It contains sections dealing with nonlinear problems in physics and astrophysics, quantum and solid state physics, dynamical chaos and self-organization.

In the dynamics of mankind one can trace out a path of contemplation about the "world," leading from early speculations to today's natural sciences. The endeavour to understand how nature works has led to the construction, still in progress, of an abstract building of great com plexity. To the uninitiated it may look more like a scurrilous sculpture resting on many legs, among them such peculiar ones as probability, relativity, quantum mechanics .... At times problems with the stabil ity of the building or sculpture arise: known facts that won't fit and can no longer be ignored start to...