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Rating: 
Summary: A Chaotic Introduction
Review: I was disappointed in this book. Every page almost has a picture. The pictures don't teach anything of substance. If you take out all the pictures you probably have 20 pages or less of text.
Rating:
Summary: "Chaos" (not Chaos theory) is all this book introduces you.
Review: I was looking for an easy-to-understand book on Chaos Theory for some non-English speakers (say, some Japanese students) to read, and I personally like "Introducing Fractal Geometry", so I got my hand on this book...It was a mistake. I would not say much about this. The author did introduce Chaos, not really Chaos theory, to the readers. He tried his best, I believe, to make things easy to understand by simplifying things... However, in doing so, he had just created Chaos. Hence, this book is probably one of the best examples of "How Simplicity creates Complexity and Chaos"... a simple scheme found in Complex systems (like complex Cellular Automata which emerged from a simple set of rules). One thing, while a lot of names (technical terms) were introduced, almost all of them are left unexplained. And I think only "introducing" is never enough. (Well, it was the name of the book afterall... this book wasn't named "Explaing Chaos" :) There are other good books on Chaos for layperson. And, in fact, "Introducing Fractal Geometry" did a far better job than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Confused and Mistaken
Review: The main problem with the book is its emphasis on multiculterism, not to mention that the author simply does not know his stuff. We are told that Galileo ignored friction in order to get "neat results" and somehow caused Western science to only study linear systems. He seems to think that nonlinearity and chaos are the same thing. He tells us that nonlinear problems are not solvable. He actually suggests that we have only recently seen that the three-body problem is chaotic. (Instead Poincare proved the chaotic nature of the problem around 1890.) He seems to think that Asian philosophies actually capture the mathematical substance of chaos theory. I could go on. If you want to study chaos get the volume "Chaos and Fractals: New Frontiers of Science" by Peitgen, Jurgens, and Saupe.
Rating:
Summary: Confused and Mistaken
Review: The main problem with the book is its emphasis on multiculterism, not to mention that the author simply does not know his stuff. We are told that Galileo ignored friction in order to get "neat results" and somehow caused Western science to only study linear systems. He seems to think that nonlinearity and chaos are the same thing. He tells us that nonlinear problems are not solvable. He actually suggests that we have only recently seen that the three-body problem is chaotic. (Instead Poincare proved the chaotic nature of the problem around 1890.) He seems to think that Asian philosophies actually capture the mathematical substance of chaos theory. I could go on. If you want to study chaos get the volume "Chaos and Fractals: New Frontiers of Science" by Peitgen, Jurgens, and Saupe.
Rating:
Summary: The author did introduce chaos, just never explained it
Review: There were a few points made ... but nothing tied together .... almost a spewing of definitions like fractal, chaos, feedback, aperiodic behavior.... Not worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Introduction is what it is!
Review: This is an excellent introduction to Chaos. It is aimed at the general non academic reader who may have heard about this buzzword called "Chaos" and wondered what's it all about. It is not for the academic, informed reader but a quick introduction for the intelligent layman or someone who last formally studied science many years ago. It draws heavily on James Gleick's book "Chaos" which was the first book to popularise the subject. If you are busy and want to know something about chaos to see if you then want to find out more, this book is perfect.
Rating:
Summary: Introduction is what it is!
Review: This is an excellent introduction to Chaos. It is aimed at the general non academic reader who may have heard about this buzzword called "Chaos" and wondered what's it all about. It is not for the academic, informed reader but a quick introduction for the intelligent layman or someone who last formally studied science many years ago. It draws heavily on James Gleick's book "Chaos" which was the first book to popularise the subject. If you are busy and want to know something about chaos to see if you then want to find out more, this book is perfect.
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