[The book] records the birth of a new science. This new science offers a way of seeing order and pattern where formerly only the random, the erratic, the unpredictable - in short, the chaotic - had been observed.... Although highly mathematical in origin, chaos is a science of the everyday world, addressing questions every child has wondered about: how clouds form, how smoke rises, how water eddies in a stream. [This] is a history of discovery. It chronicles, in the words of scientists themselves, their conflicts and frustrations, their emotions and moments of revelation. -Back cover.

Includes index.

The butterfly effect -- Revolution -- Life's ups and downs -- A geometry of nature -- Strange attractors -- Universality -- The experimenter -- Images of chaos -- The dynamical systems collective -- Inner rhythms -- Chaos and beyond.