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125 comments on DrumBeat: January 4, 2009

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Russ on January 4, 2009 - 5:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Downsouth - Is this book heavily mathematical? I've long been interested in chaos theory on a philosophical level, especially its relation to societies and economies (and I was planning to try to find out if there's such a thing yet as "Chaos and Peak Oil" or some such; maybe even take a stab at writing such an essay myself :) ).

Anyway, I don't have non-linear math, and I've heard Mandelbrot's books are mathematical to the extreme.

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DownSouth on January 4, 2009 - 7:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Quite the contrary, Russ.

There is a deliberate avoidance of the use of equations in the book so that it is easily understandable to a large readership.

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Russ on January 5, 2009 - 5:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks. I'm going to check it out.

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710 on January 5, 2009 - 6:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Have you read James Gleick's book on chaos theory?

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Russ on January 6, 2009 - 5:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yup, that's the first book I read (recommended to me by my college statistics professor).

I'd recommend it to anyone as the best introduction to the subject I know of. I also find that its philosophical implications repay repeated readings, even when you're familiar with the basics.

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710 on January 6, 2009 - 1:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This has been my experience as well, though I happened upon it through luck.

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125 comments on DrumBeat: January 4, 2009

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