Description
Book SynopsisUnstable Nature is a popular science book offering a journey through the concept of instability in modern science with a focus on physics. Conceived for the curious reader wishing to go deeper in the fascinating and not yet popularised world of instabilities, it provides an immersion into paradoxical and unexpected phenomena - some of which hides in plain sight in our daily lives.
The book is written without technical jargon, and new concepts and terminology needed for the narrative are introduced gradually based on examples taken from accessible everyday life. The chapters are connected through a path that starts from exploring instabilities at the planetary scale and then passes through a description of unstable dynamics in macroscopic settings such as in human mechanical artifacts, fluid waves, animal skin, vegetation structures, and chemical reactions, finally reaching the sub atomic scale and the biological processes of human thought. Before concluding with some
Trade Review
Unstable Nature by Auro Michele Perego is a remarkable book, and I don’t think I have ever read a similarly rich overview of this extremely important field. Although we all think we may know what “instability” might mean, physicists have a very precise formalism to study unstable phenomena in nature, and this vision is central to virtually all areas of science: from planetary instabilities to microscopic biology. Yet this is a subject that has not been adequately treated in the popular science literature, and Unstable Nature makes an extremely valuable contribution in making the subject accessible in an attractive and jargon-free way. A key aspect of the book I latched onto immediately was how the scientific study of instability provides truly universal insights that connect different areas of science, and the book underlines this constantly throughout. The style combines clear conceptual discussion, historical and personal anecdote, as well as thought-provoking philosophical discussions which are a delight to read. The author leads an independent research group in nonlinear science at Aston University, and it is a real pleasure to see such an active researcher also take a real interest in science communication.
- John Dudley, The FEMTO-ST Institute, January 2024.
Table of ContentsIntroduction.
Prelude in everyday language.
Cosmic instabilities.
Cybernetics and control systems.
Hydrodynamic instabilities: Chaos and turbulence
Modulation instability
An act of creation
Bifurcations
Morphogenesis
Instabilities at the atomic scale
Quantum vacuum and the origin of perturbations
Instabilities in the head
Pillars of Hercules
Exponential nature
Universal forms
Riding the future
Becoming
