Talk:History of dynamical systems

Holmes's article correctly reflects a definite and mainstream viewpoint on the history of dynamical systems, especially among mathematicians. For a more social approach, I would recommand the following article: David Aubin and Amy Dahan Dalmedico, Writing the History of Dynamical Systems and Chaos: Longue Durée and Revolution, Disciplines and Cultures. Historia Mathematica 29, 273-339.

In the history of dynamical systems and chaos, excluding of the related publications in physics, doesn't provide an adequate view. This article should be either modified or ammended by a paralel article that reflects the stories of the related physical problems that induced the rigorous mathematical search. Particularly, I don't see the references to N.S. Krylov, B.V. Chirikov, and a number of others.

Definition

One can't strictly say that "Dynamical system theory" can be also known as "chaos theory" or "nonlinear system theory" etc. The latter are separate branch of the former. --Funel 17:22, 8 January 2008 (EST)

=Author's response

I agree that chaos theory is strictly speaking a subset of dynamical systems theory, but I believe that nonlinear systems theory, as understood by, e.g. control theorists and other engineers, contains topics not normally taught in traditional dynamical systems courses in mathematics departments. Thus, while these latter sets intersect in a large open set, neither is contained in the other. - Phil Holmes, Jan 8th, 2008.