On March 14-18, 1983 a workshop on "Chemical Instabilities: Applications in Chemistry, Engineering, Geology, and Materials Science" was held in Austin, Texas, U.S.A. It was organized jointly by the University of Texas at Austin and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and sponsored qy NATO, NSF, the University of Texas at Austin, the International Solvay Institutes and the Ex xon Corporation. The present Volume includes most of the material of the in vited lectures delivered in the workshop as well as material from some posters, whose content was directly related to the themes of the invited lectures. In, recent years, problems related to the stability and the nonlinear dynamics of nonequilibrium systems invaded a great num ber of fields ranging from abstract mathematics to biology. One of the most striking aspects of this development is that subjects reputed to be "classical" and "well-established" like chemistry, turned out to give rise to a rich variety of phenomena leading to multiple steady states and hysteresis, oscillatory behavior in time, spatial patterns, or propagating wave fronts. The primary objective of the workshop was to bring together researchers actively engaged in fields in which instabilities and nonlinear phenomena similar to those observed in chemistry are of current and primary concern: chemical engineering (especially surface catalysis), combustion (dynamics of ignition, flame sta bili t;y), interfaces (emulsification, dendritic growth), geology (regularly repeated patterns of mineralization 1n a variety of spabe scales), and materials science (dynamical solidification, behavior of matter under irradiation)."

One of the most unexpected results in science in recent years is that quite ordinary systems obeying simple laws can give rise to complex, nonlinear or chaotic, behavior. In this book, the author presents a unified treatment of the concepts and tools needed to analyze nonlinear phenomena and to outline some representative applications drawn from the physical, engineering, and biological sciences. Some of the interesting topics covered include: dynamical systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom, linear stability analysis of fixed points, nonlinear behavior of fixed points, bifurcation analysis, spatially distributed systems, broken symmetries, pattern formation, and chaotic dynamics. The author makes a special effort to provide a logical connection between ordinary dynamical systems and spatially extended systems, and to balance the emphasis on chaotic behavior and more classical nonlinear behavior. He also develops a statistical approach to complex systems and compares it to traditional deterministic phase space descriptions. This book is suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate students taking nonlinear courses from many different perspectives including physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering.

On March 14-18, 1983 a workshop on "Chemical Instabilities: Applications in Chemistry, Engineering, Geology, and Materials Science" was held in Austin, Texas, U.S.A. It was organized jointly by the University of Texas at Austin and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and sponsored qy NATO, NSF, the University of Texas at Austin, the International Solvay Institutes and the Ex xon Corporation. The present Volume includes most of the material of the in vited lectures delivered in the workshop as well as material from some posters, whose content was directly related to the themes of the invited lectures. In, recent years, problems related to the stability and the nonlinear dynamics of nonequilibrium systems invaded a great num ber of fields ranging from abstract mathematics to biology. One of the most striking aspects of this development is that subjects reputed to be "classical" and "well-established" like chemistry, turned out to give rise to a rich variety of phenomena leading to multiple steady states and hysteresis, oscillatory behavior in time, spatial patterns, or propagating wave fronts. The primary objective of the workshop was to bring together researchers actively engaged in fields in which instabilities and nonlinear phenomena similar to those observed in chemistry are of current and primary concern: chemical engineering (especially surface catalysis), combustion (dynamics of ignition, flame sta bili t;y), interfaces (emulsification, dendritic growth), geology (regularly repeated patterns of mineralization 1n a variety of spabe scales), and materials science (dynamical solidification, behavior of matter under irradiation)."

The Advances in Chemical Physics series--the cutting edge of research in chemical physics

"The Advances in Chemical Physics" series provides the chemical physics and physical chemistry fields with a forum for critical, authoritative evaluations of advances in every area of the discipline. Filled with cutting-edge research reported in a cohesive manner not found elsewhere in the literature, each volume of the Advances in Chemical Physics series presents contributions from internationally renowned chemists and serves as the perfect supplement to any advanced graduate class devoted to the study of chemical physics.

This volume explores:

Kinetics and thermodynamics of fluctuation-induced transitions in multistable systems (G. Nicolis and C. Nicolis)

Dynamical rare event simulation techniques for equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems (Titus S. van Erp)

Confocal depolarized dynamic light scattering (M. Potenza, T. Sanvito, V. Degiorgio, and M. Giglio)

The two-step mechanism and the solution-crystal spinodal for nucleation of crystals in solution (Peter G. Vekilov)

Experimental studies of two-step nucleation during two-dimensional crystallization of colloidal particles with short-range attraction (John R. Savage, Liquan Pei, and Anthony D. Dinsmore)

On the role of metastable intermediate states in the homogeneous nucleation of solids from solution (James F. Lutsko)

Effects of protein size on the high-concentration/low-concentration phase transition (Patrick Grosfils)

Geometric constraints in the self-assembly of mineral dendrites and platelets (John J. Kozak)

What can mesoscopic level in situ observations teach us about kinetics and thermodynamics of protein crystallization? (Mike Sleutel, Dominique Maes, and Alexander Van Driessche)

The ability of silica to induce biomimetic crystallization of calcium carbonate (Matthias Kellermeier, Emilio Melero-Garcia, Werner Kunz, and Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz)