The cat's cradle, stirring, and topological complexity

There are several physical situations in which the tangling of a loop is relevant: the game of cat's cradle is a simple example, but a more important application involves the stirring of a fluid by rods. Here we discuss how elementary topology constrains the types of mappings that can occur on a surface, for example when the surface is the domain of a two-dimensional fluid.

Books in Brief

Books which caught our attention.

International Conference on Infinite Dimensional Dynamical Systems

Eighty participants attended the International Conference on Infinite Dimensional Dynamical Systems, Fall, 2008 at York University, Toronto. The conference was in honor of the 70th birthday of George R. Sell of the University of Minnesota.

Two jobs, two countries, two homes

Yulij Il’yashenko is well known in the dynamical systems community for his work on the 16th Hilbert problem, generic properties of dynamical systems, and non-local bifurcations. He works part-time both at Cornell University in the USA and at Moscow State University, the Independent University and the Steklov Institute in Russia. Hinke Osinga asked him what it was like to grow up in the former USSR and how he has come to enjoy his life split between two continents.

Berechenbares Chaos in Dynamischen Systemen

Reviewed by Charles H. Morgan, Jr.
Book Reviews Editor