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The reductionist approach of breaking down natural systems to its simple constituent units whose properties combine in a relatively simple manner to yield the complex laws of the whole has dominated the natural sciences over the last century and with good reason: it has served to explain some of the most fascinating intellectual challenges of mankind. But shortfalls in reductionism is becoming increasingly apparent: whereas one of the most striking features of physical laws from those of Newton to Einstein are their inherent linear simplicity, the world outside the classroom is astonishingly complex and nonlinear. So then, why is the real world we live in so complex and challenging to the understanding of the fundamental nature of its dynamics if the governing laws are as simple as they are supposed to be? The passionate believers of the new emergent science of nonlinearity believe that whereas twentieth-century theoretical physics came out of the relativistic and the quantum mechanical revolutions which was all about simplicity and continuity with its principal tool being calculus, twenty-first-century is slowly emerging out of the chaos revolution into complexity. Though its final expression remains to be found, thermodynamics, as a vital part of theoretical physics, is expected to partake in the transformation. The proposed workshop is expected to be a forum of inquiry into those aspects of nonlinearity that have made it the exciting field it promises to be, as also to contribute to the basic goal of ISNA of providing a common platform for a meaningful and constructive interaction among those diverse fields that are finding nonlinear techniques increasingly relevant and useful in their respective areas of activity. In summary, we expect to be able to initiate discussions, hopefully to be followed by similar ones in the future, on the physics and mathematics of nonlinearity involving questions of why the linear reductionist world of today's classroom is so markedly different from the actuality of Nature, and to investigate the role of an integrative supplementary agenda in reductionism that seeks to explain those properties of the whole that emerge only when simple constituent parts are put together to interact and yield the resulting complex system: the workshop will aim at constituting a dialogue of debate and discussion on the open and some of the most challenging questions of recent times on the nonlinear dynamics of nature. The participants, including lecturers, are therefore expected to be academics from the research and educational institutions in this country and abroad.
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