Book recommendation: “Chaos” by James Gleick

I have discovered this book that has been originally published all the way back in 1987 thanks to Es Devlin in her Masterclass “Turning Ideas into Art” which I tremendously enjoyed. This book was somewhat unknown to me and its such a welcome discovery.

Chaos introduces a reader to chaos theory, one of the most significant waves of scientific knowledge in our time. From Edward Lorenz’s discovery of the Butterfly Effect, to Mitchell Feigenbaum’s calculation of a universal constant, to Benoit Mandelbrot’s concept of fractals, which created a new geometry of nature, Gleick’s engaging narrative focuses on the key figures whose genius converged to chart an innovative direction for science. In Chaos, Gleick makes the story of chaos theory fascinating and accessible to beginners and opens our eyes to a surprising new view of the universe.

In this book, Gleick looks at how the science of chaos was developed. It's pretty interesting to follow how researchers in different fields somehow discover how the theory is not as it seems. How simple systems are not just simple systems but can evolve into complex systems. And how these researchers through their curiosity and open-mindedness were able to see that perhaps there's a new paradigm and a new theory to be discovered. However, it is quite challenging to grasp the very main idea of why this book is written, in my opinion.

Does Gleick want to tell us about chaos? In that case, the explanations are few and far between and when an explanation of chaos is attempted, it doesn't quite adequately explain it. Perhaps this is more to tell the human side of chaos? How recognition might not always come but the pursuit of truth is more important. In this case, I am unconvinced as the structure doesn't allow that to come across. The book seems to be more about individuals and split up into small autobiographies. The most exciting point for me was how Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions was exemplified but other than this I don't feel like I got anything else out of the book.
This is then not a book about chaos theory. It's more a collection of stories of the people who helped bring about chaos theory and their struggles in doing so.

And still, it is surprising to think about how advanced our society is, yet we are still unable to fully describe everyday occurrences like creamer mixing into the coffee. As tempting as it is to try to fit data sets into normal distributions and other orderly patterns, nature consistently demonstrates that these models only correspond to reality under certain conditions and these conditions are rarely satisfied.
To be totally honest, I was also hoping to get more of an update in the afterword regarding how much this field has advanced since the book was written over two decades ago. But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes science or is generally a curious person.