Treasures inside the bell : hidden order in chance /

Puente Angulo starts off with an explication of the Chaos game, continuing with variations in two and three dimensions, ultimately expressed in polar coordinates, to yield approximations of three-dimensional Gaussian distributions. Computer-generated projections over two dimensions reveal beautiful circular patterns with various symmetries. Some of these closely resemble snowflakes, others the E. coli chaperonin groEL protein, the B-DNA rosette, and the Salmonella bacterium. The mathematical development of these processes is largely a mystery because the author introduces numerous new terms without definitions and substitutes nontechnical text for mathematical rigor. The 20 pages of technical notes at the end do not fulfill the promise to offer "technical details," but they contain valuable references. The bulk of the slim book is somewhat tediously devoted to more than 300 reproductions of the various patterns. A program "implementing the ideas" is written in Fortran, making it virtually useless for most PC users. The accompanying CD-ROM contains copies of all patterns in PDF format, resulting in large (up to 18 Mb) files that are cumbersome to load. The program itself is not on the CD-ROM. An interesting but ultimately disappointing book. Adequate index. ^BSumming Up: Optional. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. J. Mayer emeritus, Lebanon Valley College