The goal of this third edition of Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering is the same as previous editions: to provide a good foundation - and a joyful experience - for anyone who’d like to learn about nonlinear dynamics and chaos from an applied perspective.

The presentation stresses analytical methods, concrete examples, and geometric intuition. The theory is developed systematically, starting with first-order differential equations and their bifurcations, followed by phase plane analysis, limit cycles and their bifurcations, and culminating with the Lorenz equations, chaos, iterated maps, period doubling, renormalization, fractals, and strange attractors.

The prerequisites are comfort with multivariable calculus and linear algebra, as well as a first course in physics. Ideas from probability, complex analysis, and Fourier analysis are invoked, but they're either worked out from scratch or can be safely skipped (or accepted on faith).