There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Convergence of Probability Measures. By P. Billingsley. Chichester, Sussex, Wiley, 1968. xii, 253 p. 9 1/4“. 117s.

Convergence of Probability Measures

N G van Kampen 1981 Amsterdam: North-Holland xiv + 419 pp price Dfl 180 This is a book which, at a lower price, could be expected to become an essential part of the library of every physical scientist concerned with problems involving fluctuations and stochastic processes, as well as those who just enjoy a beautifully written book. It provides an extensive graduate-level introduction which is clear, cautious, interesting and readable.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-9112/34/4/040/pdf

Stochastic Processes in Physics and Chemistry

The author's preface gives an outline: "This book is about weakconvergence methods in metric spaces, with applications sufficient to show their power and utility. The Introduction motivates the definitions and indicates how the theory will yield solutions to problems arising outside it. Chapter 1 sets out the basic general theorems, which are then specialized in Chapter 2 to the space C[0, l ] of continuous functions on the unit interval and in Chapter 3 to the space D [0, 1 ] of functions with discontinuities of the first kind. The results of the first three chapters are used in Chapter 4 to derive a variety of limit theorems for dependent sequences of random variables. " The book develops and expands on Donsker's 1951 and 1952 papers on the invariance principle and empirical distributions. The basic random variables remain real-valued although, of course, measures on C[0, l ] and D[0, l ] are vitally used. Within this framework, there are various possibilities for a different and apparently better treatment of the material. More of the general theory of weak convergence of probabilities on separable metric spaces would be useful. Metrizability of the convergence is not brought up until late in the Appendix. The close relation of the Prokhorov metric and a metric for convergence in probability is (hence) not mentioned (see V. Strassen, Ann. Math. Statist. 36 (1965), 423-439; the reviewer, ibid. 39 (1968), 1563-1572). This relation would illuminate and organize such results as Theorems 4.1, 4.2 and 4.4 which give isolated, ad hoc connections between weak convergence of measures and nearness in probability. In the middle of p. 16, it should be noted that C*(S) consists of signed measures which need only be finitely additive if 5 is not compact. On p. 239, where the author twice speaks of separable subsets having nonmeasurable cardinal, he means "discrete" rather than "separable." Theorem 1.4 is Ulam's theorem that a Borel probability on a complete separable metric space is tight. Theorem 1 of Appendix 3 weakens completeness to topological completeness. After mentioning that probabilities on the rationals are tight, the author says it is an

Convergence of probability measures

1980 Preface * 1999 Preface * 1999 Acknowledgements * Introduction * 1 Circular Logic * 2 Phase Singularities (Screwy Results of Circular Logic) * 3 The Rules of the Ring * 4 Ring Populations * 5 Getting Off the Ring * 6 Attracting Cycles and Isochrons * 7 Measuring the Trajectories of a Circadian Clock * 8 Populations of Attractor Cycle Oscillators * 9 Excitable Kinetics and Excitable Media * 10 The Varieties of Phaseless Experience: In Which the Geometrical Orderliness of Rhythmic Organization Breaks Down in Diverse Ways * 11 The Firefly Machine 12 Energy Metabolism in Cells * 13 The Malonic Acid Reagent ('Sodium Geometrate') * 14 Electrical Rhythmicity and Excitability in Cell Membranes * 15 The Aggregation of Slime Mold Amoebae * 16 Numerical Organizing Centers * 17 Electrical Singular Filaments in the Heart Wall * 18 Pattern Formation in the Fungi * 19 Circadian Rhythms in General * 20 The Circadian Clocks of Insect Eclosion * 21 The Flower of Kalanchoe * 22 The Cell Mitotic Cycle * 23 The Female Cycle * References * Index of Names * Index of Subjects

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/596B270197FE27DE5FABB598B6210622/S0025557200150892a.pdf/div-class-title-span-class-italic-the-geometry-of-biological-time-span-by-a-t-winfree-pp-544-dm68-corrected-second-printing-1990-isbn-3-540-52528-9-springer-div.pdf

The geometry of biological time , by A. T. Winfree. Pp 544. DM68. Corrected Second Printing 1990. ISBN 3-540-52528-9 (Springer)

We describe a new test for determining whether a given deterministic dynamical system is chaotic or non-chaotic. In contrast to the usual method of computing the maximal Lyapunov exponent, our method is applied directly to the time-series data and does not require phase-space reconstruction. Moreover, the dimension of the dynamical system and the form of the underlying equations are irrelevant. The input is the time-series data and the output is 0 or 1, depending on whether the dynamics is non-chaotic or chaotic. The test is universally applicable to any deterministic dynamical system, in particular to ordinary and partial differential equations, and to maps. Our diagnostic is the real valued function p(t)=∫φ(xs)cos(θ(s)) ds, where φ is an observable on the underlying dynamics x(t) and θ(t)&=ct+∫φ(xs)cos(θ(s)) ds. The constant c > 0 is fixed arbitrarily. We define the mean-square displacement M(t) for p(t) and set K=limt→∞\logM(t)\logt. Using recent developments in ergodic theory, we argue that, typically, K=0, signifying non-chaotic dynamics, or $K=1$, signifying chaotic dynamics.

A new test for chaos in deterministic systems

We describe a new test for determining whether a given deterministic dynamical system is chaotic or nonchaotic. (This is an alternative to the usual approach of computing the largest Lyapunov exponent.) Our method is a 0-1 test for chaos (the output is a 0 signifying nonchaotic or a 1 signifying chaotic) and is independent of the dimension of the dynamical system. Moreover, the underlying equations need not be known. The test works equally well for continuous and discrete time. We give examples for an ordinary differential equation, a partial differential equation and for a map.

A New Test for Chaos

In this paper we address practical aspects of the implementation of the 0–1 test for chaos in deterministic systems. In addition, we present a new formulation of the test which significantly increases its sensitivity. The test can be viewed as a method for distilling a binary quantity from the power spectrum. The implementation is guided by recent results from the theoretical justification of the test as well as by exploring better statistical methods for determining the binary quantities. We give several examples to illustrate the improvement.

/pdf/on-the-implementation-of-the-0-1-test-for-chaos-125xwcqztg.pdf

On the Implementation of the 0-1 Test for Chaos

In this paper we address practical aspects of the implementation of the 0-1 test for chaos in deterministic systems. In addition, we present a new formulation of the test which significantly increases its sensitivity. The test can be viewed as a method to distill a binary quantity from the power spectrum. The implementation is guided by recent results from the theoretical justification of the test as well as by exploring better statistical methods to determine the binary quantities. We give several examples to illustrate the improvement.

Ian Melbourne

Papers

A new test for chaos in deterministic systems

A New Test for Chaos

On the Implementation of the 0-1 Test for Chaos

On the Implementation of the 0-1 Test for Chaos

Testing for Chaos in Deterministic Systems with Noise