Sometimes, it’s easy for a computer to predict the future. Simple phenomena, such as how sap flows down a tree trunk, are straightforward and can be captured in a few lines of code using what ...

Frank Merle is used to confronting a messy world. He works on the mathematics of highly nonlinear systems—ones that respond in dramatic, unpredictable ways to even the smallest changes. It’s the same ...

A system of equations where the output of one equation is part of the input for another. A simple version of a dynamical system is linear simultaneous equations. Non-linear simultaneous equations are ...