Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaotic Phenomena : Springer : 9780792347729 : 0792347722 : 30 Nov 1997 : FolJowing the formulation of the laws of mechanics by Newton, Lagrange sought to clarify and emphasize their geometrical character. Poincare and Liapunov successfuIJy developed analytical mechanics further along these lines. In this approach, one represents the evolution of all possible states (positions and momenta) by the flow in phase space, or more efficiently, by mappings on manifolds with a symplectic geometry, and tries to understand qualitative features of this problem, rather than solving it explicitly. One important outcome of this line of inquiry is the discovery that vastly different physical systems can actually be abstracted to a few universal forms, like Mandelbrot's fractal and Smale's horse-shoe map, even though the underlying processes are not completely understood. This, of course, implies that much of the observed diversity is only apparent and arises from different ways