Les: > i agree chaos and complexity studies have a > fad __component__.
Les, As I know it, fad means craze, trend, mania and the like. In that sense, anyone who knows some math knows that chaos is a fad. Take a look at the Preface of that beautiful book by Stephen Wiggins where he says: "Finally, although nonlinear dynamics and chaos have become something of a fad over a decade it is still true that an understanding of nonlinear phenomena requires a solid mathematical background and a lot of hard work." Topology was like that too at some point, although it never got the publicity chaos did, but this does not mean that topology is useless or irrelevant. Nor chaos as a theory is useless or irrelevant. Of course, it is useful and relevant. Even game theory can be useful, dispite my doubts. But none of these have anything to do with their "fadness", whatever that means. When you are an insider, you view things differently. > your friend is missing something. I doubt it. People like him don't miss much in such regards. By the way, at some point in his mathematics career he said, I am not gonna finish this PhD and started to read about the history of art. About the same time I started reading about the history of Jazz, so this is why I remember it. > what does he think of Goedel's work??? to my mind his > theorem highlights BOTH the strengths and weaknesses of > axiomatic systems, as he utiliized ingenious techniques > to derive said theroems. I better put you in touch with him so that he can answer your question personally. He was the first person from whom I heard about Goedel and at the time he was 18 and I was 17. Best, Sabri PS: Is Marsden you mentioned is Jerry Marsden?
