Chaos, Cnn, Memristors And Beyond: A Festschrift For Leon Chua (With Dvd-rom, Composed By Eleonora Bilotta)

Book excerpt: This invaluable book is a unique collection of tributes to outstanding discoveries pioneered by Leon Chua in nonlinear circuits, cellular neural networks, and chaos. It is comprised of three parts. The first — cellular nonlinear networks, nonlinear circuits and cellular automata — deals with Chua's Lagrangian circuits, cellular wave computers, bio-inspired robotics and neuro-morphic architectures, toroidal chaos, synaptic cellular automata, history of Chua's circuits, cardiac arrhythmias, local activity principle, symmetry breaking and complexity, bifurcation trees, and Chua's views on nonlinear dynamics of cellular automata. Dynamical systems and chaos is the scope of the second part of the book, where we find genius accounts on theory and application of Julia set, stability of dynamical networks, chaotic neural networks and neocortical dynamics, dynamics of piecewise linear systems, chaotic mathematical circuitry, synchronization of oscillators, models of catastrophic events, control of chaotic systems, symbolic dynamics, and solitons. First hand accounts on the discovery of memristors in HP Labs, historical excursions into ‘ancient memristors’, analytical analysis of memristors, and hardware memristor emulators are presented in the third and final part of the book.The book is quintessence of ideas on future and emergent hardware, analytic theories of complex dynamical systems and interdisciplinary physics. It is a true Renaissance volume where bright ideas of electronics, mathematics and physics enlighten facets of modern science.The unique DVD covers the artistic aspects of chaos, such as several stunningly melodious musical compositions using chaotic atttractors, a virtual gallery of hundreds of colorful attractors, and even a cartoon-like play on the genesis of Chua's circuit that was based on a widely acclaimed performance in Rome and other venues in Italy. In short, it is a veritable kaleiscope of never-before-published historical, pedagogical, and futuristic technical visions on three timely topics of intense interest for both lay readers and experts alike.