Product Description: Through the development of an exact path integral for use in transferring information from observations to a model of the observed system, the author provides a general framework for the discussion of model building and evaluation across disciplines...read more

The ocean has entranced mankind for as long as we have gazed upon it, traversed it, dived into it, and studied it. It remains ever changing and seemingly never changing. Each wave that progresses through the. imme­ diate surf zone on every coast is strikingly different, yet the waves come again and again, as if never to end. The seasons come with essential reg­ ularity, and· yet each is individual-whatever did happen to that year of the normal rainfall or tidal behavior? This fascination with the currents of the ocean has always had a most immediate practical aspect: shipping, transportation, commerce, and war have depended upon our knowledge, when we had it, and floundered on our surprising ignorance more often than we wish to reflect. These important practical issues have commanded attention from commercial, academic, and military research scientists and engineers from the earliest era of organized scientific investigation. The matter of direct and insistent investigation was from the outset the behavior of ocean currents with long time scales; namely, those varying on annual or at least seasonal cycles. Planning for all the named enterprises depended, as they still do, of course, on the ability to predict with some certainty this class of phenomena. That ability, as with most physical sci­ ence, is predicated on a firm basis of observational fact to establish what, amorig the myriad of mathematical possibilities, is chosen by Nature as her expression of fact.

Product Description: A clear and systematic treatment of time series of data, regular and chaotic, found in nonlinear systems. The text leads readers from measurements of one or more variables through the steps of building models of the source as a dynamical system, classifying the source by its dynamical characteristics, and finally predicting and controlling the dynamical system...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

This series of lectures aims to address three main questions that anyone interested in the study of nonlinear dynamics should ask and ponder over. What is nonlinear dynamics and how does it differ from linear dynamics which permeates all familiar textbooks? Why should the physicist study nonlinear systems and leave the comfortable territory of linearity? How can one progress in the study of nonlinear systems both in the analysis of these systems and in learning about new systems from observing their experimental behavior? While it is impossible to answer these questions in the finest detail, this series of lectures nonetheless successfully points the way for the interested reader. Other useful problems have also been incorporated as a study guide. By presenting both substantial qualitative information about phenomena in nonlinear systems and at the same time sufficient quantitative material, the author hopes that readers would learn how to progress on their own in the study of such similar material hereon. (view table of contents)