Nineteenth century anticipations of modern theory of dynamical systems (Q1203004)

Maxwell, Boussinesq and Saint-Venant all succeeded in showing that Newtonian physics need not lead to a fully determined universe. Their accounts differ in emphasis and in detail, but all are concerned with questions of bifurcation and stability. Such questions have come very much to the fore in the modern study of the theory of dynamical systems and of the work of these three researchers as anticipating some of the concerns of that theory.