Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sftri.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxj!mhuxn!mhuxm!sftig!sftri!jss From: jss@sftri.UUCP (J.S.Schwarz) Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: Re: Re: Non-linear systems. Message-ID: <333@sftri.UUCP> Date: Sun, 20-Jan-85 20:51:42 EST Article-I.D.: sftri.333 Posted: Sun Jan 20 20:51:42 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 21-Jan-85 04:39:24 EST References: <209@talcott.UUCP>, <328@rlgvax.UUCP> <384@hou2g.UUCP>, <1027@sunybcs.UUCP> <386@hou2g.UUCP> <115@redwood.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Summit N.J. Lines: 27 > > I remember some constructions we did in math in college many (many!) years > ago with functions that were "discontinuous everywhere". Has the above > sort of thing been done with physical systems? Is this the sort of stuff > Catastrophy Theory is supposed to deal with? > > > Rob Warnock > Systems Architecture Consultant > No. The subject is nonequilibrium thermodynamics. A good introduction is the book From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences by Ilya Prigogine W. H. Freeman & Co. ISBN 0-7167-1108-7 pbk (Prigogine won a Nobel prize for work related to the contents of the book, but this book is readable by those with a year or two of undergraduate physics.) Jerry Schwarz