EXPERIMENTAL NONLINEAR PHYSICS

This review gives an account of the historical development, the curren t state and possible future developments of experimental nonlinear phy sics, with emphasis on acoustics, hydrodynamics and optics. The concep ts of nonlinear time-series analysis which are the basis of the analys is of experimental outcomes from nonlinear systems are explained and r ecent developments pertaining to such different fields as modeling, pr ediction, nonlinear noise reduction, detecting determinism, synchroniz ation, and spatio-temporal time series are surveyed. An overview is gi ven of experiments on acoustic cavitation, a field rich in nonlinear p henomena such as nonlinear oscillations, chaotic dynamics and structur e formation, and one of the first physical systems to exhibit period-d oubling and chaos in experiment. (C) 1997 The Franklin Institute. Publ ished by Elsevier Science Ltd.