Chapter 2: From Mathematics to Electronic Circuits

Close behind celestial mechanics with its three-body problem, radio-engineering created a class of models leading directly to the study of chaotic behavior. These physical and mathematical problems appeared at the beginning of the 20th century in connection with the earliest vacuum tubes (diodes, triodes, …). The corresponding paradigm is designated under the name Theory of Oscillators, the title of the fundamental book on the subject by the founding members of the Russian school, namely Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Andronov, Aleksandr Aadol’fovich Witt and Semen Emmanuilovich Khaikin. The first edition appeared in 1937. The very practical context under which these studies were undertaken provided a central role for the differential equations that described these systems. The general problem is correctly and precisely presented in the introduction to the Theory of Oscillators…