Chaos: Making a New Science

Journalist and science historian James Gleick (born in 1954) has written about information technology and time travel in addition to chaos science. Chaos: Making a New Science remains his most well-known and influential work. The book sparked public interest in the complex science of chaos and paved the way for popular cultural interpretations of the theory. In Chaos, Gleick’s objective is not only to elucidate a basic understanding of chaos theory and its origins but also to humanize the various scientists working in this emerging field.

Chaos reveals Gleick’s fascination with emerging systems thought and its application despite initial setbacks, challenges, and risks. In the second chapter of the book, Gleick notes that the people first drawn to the field of chaos faced significant struggles: “Every scientist who turned to chaos early had a story to tell of discouragement or open hostility” (37). For graduate students, there were no mentors to whom to turn, and no particular career prospects after their years of study; for older professors, they were risking reputation and respect in pursuing such an unproven set of ideas. It is a testament, as Gleick repeatedly emphasizes, to the promise of chaos science that most of these early innovators stuck with their research, even in the face of such discouragement.