In recent years there has been an explosive growth in the study of
physical, biological, and economic systems that can be profitably
studied using densities. Because of the general inaccessibility of the
mathematical literature to the nonspecialist, little diffusion of the
applicable mathematics into the study of these "chaotic" systems has
taken place. This book will help bridge that gap. To show how densities
arise in simple deterministic systems, the authors give a unified
treatment of a variety of mathematical systems generating densities,
ranging from one-dimensional discrete time transformations through
continuous time systems described by integro-partial-differential
equations. Examples have been drawn from many fields to illustrate the
utility of the concepts and techniques presented, and the ideas in this
book should thus prove useful in the study of a number of applied
sciences. The authors assume that the reader has a knowledge of advanced
calculus and differential equations. Basic concepts from measure theory,
ergodic theory, the geometry of manifolds, partial differential
equations, probability theory and Markov processes, and stochastic
integrals and differential equations are introduced as needed.
Physicists, chemists, and biomathematicians studying chaotic behavior
will find this book of value. It will also be a useful reference or text
for mathematicians and graduate students working in ergodic theory and
dynamical systems.