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1. INTROUCTION

There are many situations, in many disciplines, which can be described, at least to a crude first approximation, by a simple first-order difference equation. Studies of the dynamical properties of such models usually consist of finding constant equilibrium solutions, and then conducting a linearised analysis to determine their stability with respect to small disturbances: explicitly nonlinear dynamical features are usually not considered.

Recent studies have, however, shown that the very simplest nonlinear difference equations can possess an extraordinarily rich spectrum of dynamical behaviour, from stable points, through cascades of stable cycles, to a regime in which the behaviour (although fully deterministic) is in many respects "chaotic", or indistinguishable from the sample function of a random process.

This review article has several aims.

First, although the main features of these nonlinear phenomena have been discovered and independently rediscovered by several people, I know of no source where all the main results are collected together. I have therefore tried to give such a synoptic account. This is done in a brief and descriptive way, and includes some new material: the detailed mathematical proofs are to be found in the technical literature, to which signposts are given.

Second, I indicate some of the interesting mathematical questions which do not seem to be fully resolved, Some of these problems are of a practical kind, to do with providing a probabilistic desciiption for trajectories which seem random, even though their underlying structure is deterministic. Other problems are of intrinsic mathematical interest, and treat such things as the pathology of the bifurcation structure, or the truly random behaviour, that can arise when the nonlinear function F(X) of equation (1) is not analytical. One aim here is to stimulate research on these questions, particularly on the empirical questions which relate to processing data.

Third, consideration is given to some fields where these notions may find practical application. Such applications range from the abstractly metaphorical (where, for example, the transition from a stable point to "chaos" serves as a metaphor for the onset of turbulence in a fluid), to models for the dynamic behaviour of biological populations (where one can seek to use field or laboratory data to estimate the values of the parameters in the difference equation).

Fourth, there is a very brief review of the literature pertaining to the way this spectrum of behaviour - stable points, stable cycles, chaos - can arise in second or higher order difference equations (that is, two or more dimensions; two or more interacting species), where the onset of chaos usually requires less severe nonlinearities. Differential equations are also surveyed in this light; it seems that a three-dimensional system of first-order ordinary differential equations is required for the manifestation of chaotic behaviour.

The review ends with an evangelical plea for the introduction of these difference equations into elementary mathematics courses, so that students' intuition may be enriched by seeing the wild things that simple nonlinear equations can do.

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