STABILITY, INSTABILITY AND CHAOS

This book examines qualitative methods for nonlinear differential equations, bifurcation theory and chaos in terms suitable for advanced undergraduate and first-year postgraduate students in mathematics and physics. Starting from the idea of phase space, the structure of solutions near hyperbolic stationary points and periodic orbits in investigated. Then, after a brief discussion of perturbation methods and nonlinear oscillators, the theory of nonhyperbolic stationary points, bifurcations and chaos is described._,