Nonlinear dynamics

Research in nonlinear dynamics is rapidly expanding and its range of applications is extending beyond the traditional areas of science where it was first developed. Indeed while linear analysis and modelling, which has been very successful in mathematical physics and engineering, has become a mature science, many elementary phenomena of intrinsic nonlinear nature were recently experimentally detected and investigated, suggesting new theoretical work. Complex systems, as turbulent fluids, were known to be governed by intrinsically nonlinear laws since a long time ago, but received purely phenomenological descriptions. The pioneering works of Boltzmann and Poincare, probably because of their intrinsic difficulty, did not have a revolutionary impact at their time; it is only very recently that their message is reaching a significant number of mathematicians and physicists. Certainly the development of computers and computer graphics played an important role in developing geometric intuition of complex phenomena through simple numerical experiments, while a new mathematical framework to understand them was being developed