EAN: 9780857291141

A SHORT HISTORY OF MATHEMATICAL POPULATION DYNA...

As Eugene Wigner stressed  mathematics has proven unreasonably effective in the physical
sciences and their technological applications. The role of mathematics in the biological 
medical and social sciences has been much more modest but has recently grown thanks to the
simulation capacity offered by modern computers. This book traces the history of population
dynamics---a theoretical subject closely connected to genetics  ecology  epidemiology and
demography---where mathematics has brought significant insights. It presents an overview of the
genesis of several important themes: exponential growth  from Euler and Malthus to the Chinese
one-child policy  the development of stochastic models  from Mendel's laws and the question of
extinction of family names to percolation theory for the spread of epidemics  and chaotic
populations  where determinism and randomness intertwine. The reader of this book will see 
from a different perspective  the problems that scientists face when governments ask for
reliable predictions to help control epidemics (AIDS  SARS  swine flu)  manage renewable
resources (fishing quotas  spread of genetically modified organisms) or anticipate demographic
evolutions such as aging.

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