While some of this book is a nicely flowing narrative about people and places, other sections can be more difficult to get through. My guess is that many readers are simply trying to get a flavor of the mathematics without actually understanding it. And, in fact, I'm not sure that they could understand it simply by reading about it. So I will give you some questions to help guide you through certain parts of the reading and to connect it to what we are doing in class.
All of these questions are for the chapter named "Life's Ups and Downs" which starts on page 57. You will start the assigned reading this weekend and you will turn in your responses to these questions (separate sheet please) on Wednesday, November 3.
1) Look at the equation given on the top of page 63. This is a version of the logistic equation that we have been working with in class. How is the book's version similar to our version and how does it differ?
2) The graph on the top of page 64 shows growth over time of a sequence of P values. This particular style of growth results from using a certain value of parameter a in the logistic equation. Check your number line of a values and suggest a possible number that they might have used for a in order to generate this particular graph.
3) Identify some quotations, sections or paragraphs of the book (give me the page reference) that sound familiar from things you've been doing in class. Explain what class activity it seems to relate to.
4) Next identify a section or paragraph of the book that seems unfamiliar, unrelated to class and probably confusing.
5) Steven Smale is mentioned a few times in the chapter. Don't worry that you have never heard of him or his work. That background is not necessary for you to understand the most important parts of the chapter.
6) Sometimes the book is misleading. For example on page 64, at the end of the first paragraph, Gleick writes: "The equilibrium was the important thing. It did not occur to the ecologists that there might be no equilibrium." The systems he is referring to do in fact have an equilibrium. It's just not attracting. Explain the distinction.
7) On page 68, Gleick quotes a mathematician who talks about the ridiculousness of referring to zoology as "the study of nonelephant animals." What point was that mathematician trying to make?
8) On page 80, Gleick reports that Robert May wants all students to get a calculator and play with the logistic equation. What does he mean when he says that students get a "distorted sense of the world's possibilities that comes from a standard scientific education"? Are you aware of anything you've learned in school that has given you a distorted picture of the world?
9) From what you have read so far of Gleick's book, what do you think the word "chaos" means? Identify places in the reading that have given you this impression.
10) Give me a sense of whether you are enjoying reading the book or not.
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