Introduction to
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos

Time

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 - 10:45pm
Room N210, Howey Physics Building
MS Teams Meeting: some lectures are live-streamed, all are prerecorded

Predrag Cvitanović     (Cvitanović? say it!)
Office: course MS Teams, phone: 404 487 8469, email: predrag@gatech.edu
Course homepage: ChaosBook.org/course0
Office hours: Monday 9:30 – 10:45

Alex George-Kennedy
Office: course MS Teams or Howey IZ
email: alexandergk@gatech.edu
Office hours: Thursday 16:30 - 18:00

The material covered includes differential equations, their stability and bifurcations, iterated maps, deterministic chaos, fractals, and strange attractors with applications to physical, chemical, and biological systems.

Steven Strogatz: Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos (2015 edition).
All chapter and exercise numbers refer to this book, unless stated otherwise.

• Online resources
•   S.H. Strogatz lectures
•   S. Brunton lectures
•   J. Bramburger lectures (Strogatz based)
• D.I. Goldman course (emphasis on experimental projects)
•   P. Cvitanović lectures (mostly more advanced, presume this course)
•   Complexity Explorer's courses (pedagogical)
• the very best book value per money:
• ChaosBook.org Chaos: Classical and Quantum webbook
• books strong on maps:
  • E. Ott, Chaos in Dynamical Systems, Cambridge Univ. Press
  • K. Aligood, T. Sauer, J. Yorke, Chaos: An Introduction to Dynamical Systems, Springer
• book strong on Hamiltonian systems:
  • A. Lichtenberg, M. Liebermann, Regular and Stochastic Motion, Springer

Homework assignments will be posted on the web every Thursday and will be due next Thursday as single pdf file on Canvas (handwritten is OK, but clean, readable), with solutions posted to Canvas. You can discuss problems with each other, but the solutions have to be executed and submitted individually. Some assignments will include problems (in blue font), which are mandatory for graduates and optional (for extra credit) for undergraduates. Use a computer to do plots - in the long run, it is faster, and it is what you need to learn anyhow. You are expected to comply with the academic honor code.

Grades will based on the results of the homework assignments (70%), midterm (10%), and final exam (20%).

Grading Scale: 90 – 100% = A; 80 – 89% = B; 70 – 79% = C; 60 – 69% = D; 0 – 59% = F.

svn: $Author: predrag $ - $Date: 2023-09-02 13:11:44 -0400 (Sat, 02 Sep 2023) $