Research papers

Statistical Physics of Macromolecules

Alexander Y. Grosberg, Alexei R. Khokhlov, H. Eugene Stanley, A. John Mallinckrodt, Susan R. McKay

T he appellation "dirt physics" was given to three schools of physicists who, during the 1970s, began to work on questions related to the statics and dynamics of complex long-chain molecules.This work was called dirt physics because no one could imagine where the "physics" was or even what the general physics principles were.General principles as well as specific new results were found though, in abundance, by members of all three schools (and other "camp followers," including this reviewer).One substantial school grew up in the UK around Sir Sam Edwards, who in the 1960s had already recognized the uncanny parallels between quantum field theory and

Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering

Steven H. Strogatz, Mark J. Friedman, A. John Mallinckrodt, Susan R. McKay

Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science

Ronald Graham, Donald E. Knuth, Oren Patashnik, Stanley Yung‐Chuan Liu

Concrete Mathematics is a blending of CONtinuous and disCRETE mathematics. "More concretely," the authors explain, "it is the controlled manipulation of mathematical formulas, using a collection of techniques for solving problems." The subject matter is primarily an expansion of the Mathematical Preliminaries section in Knuth's classic Art of Computer Programming, but the style of presentation is more leisurely, and individual topics are covered more deeply. Several new topics have been added, and the most significant ideas have been traced to their historical roots. The book includes more than 500 exercises, divided into six categories. Complete answers are provided for all exercises, except research problems, making the book particularly valuable for self-study. Major topics include: Sums Recurrences Integer functions Elementary number theory Binomial coefficients Generating functions Discrete probability Asymptotic methods ...