Encounters with Chaos by Denny Gulick… Years and years ago this was a textbook for a course that I took. I have to admit that I did not have the necessary math background to understand everything. With covid I felt it was perhaps a good time to reread it. Apparently, there is a new edition of this book and maybe if a library has a copy I would consider checking it out in the future.
There is something rather enjoyable with reading a textbook for fun. You don’t have any homework, you can focus on the important parts, and also you can skip the boring parts (including some horrible proofs). I have to admit that I did not spend that much time reading the section on 2D mapping functions.
This book really helped with the mathematical background for a few projects; that is one on creating bifurcation diagrams, and another on the chaos game. Also it will be the basis for a few more future projects, namely computing Julia and Mandelbrot set fractals.
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