《世界科普名著精选:拓扑学奇趣》主要内容：拓扑学是数学的比较年轻又极为重要的分支。著名法国数学家安•韦伊曾说过，为争取每一个数学家的心灵，拓扑天使和抽象代数恶魔都要角斗。这正说明了，拓扑学无比的优雅和美丽；整个数学是拓扑学和代数学观念的奇妙的编织物。近年来，拓扑学愈来愈渗透入到物理学、化学和生物学领域中，愈来愈显示出它的重要地位。《世界科普名著精选:拓扑学奇趣》采用大量插图和通俗的语言对拓扑学这个既年轻又被视作较为深奥的数学分支作了简明的介绍，并把通常数学理论所必备的定义、定理，用通俗的语言和大量的插图作了较为直观的描述，使读者能在不知不觉中接受了拓扑学的一些理论和知识。书中还列有200多道习题供有一定数学基础并乐于进行思考的读者探索。

Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on Higgs bosons and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions.  Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void? Does human purpose and meaning fit into a scientific worldview?

In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level--and then how each connects to the other.  Carroll's presentation of the principles that have guided the scientific revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe is dazzlingly unique.

Carroll shows how an avalanche of discoveries in the past few hundred years has changed our world and what really matters to us. Our lives are dwarfed like never before by the immensity of space and time, but they are redeemed by our capacity to comprehend it and give it meaning.

The Big Picture is an unprecedented scientific worldview, a tour de force that will sit on shelves alongside the works of Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, and E. O. Wilson for years to come.

粒子物理的基本知识，从主要常见粒子如电子、光子、质子、中子、反粒子、中微子、共振子等乃至比较特殊的J/y等粒子的发现，作了比较详细的讨论。对宇称不守恒、夸克模型以及认识逐步走向统一的探索故事，作了深入浅出和比较生动的描述。对于一些比较重要的发现或进展，特别是获得诺贝尔奖的项目，大多作了着力的说明。对于一些基本的数据，也大多作了更新。而且，还专门用一章的篇幅阐述了夸克在天文学和天体物理学上的应用，特别是关于奇异夸克星的探索和研究。

内容提要
本书是“非线性科学丛书”的第一册。本书借助于抛物线映射这一很初等的工具，介绍混沌动力学的一些最基本的概念和方法。全书计分七章，即：最简单的非线性模型，抛物线映射，倍周期分岔序列，切分岔，混沌映射，吸引子的刻划，过渡过程。本书深入浅出，图文并茂，文献丰富。可供理工科大学教师、高年级学生、研究生、博士后阅读，也可供自然科学和工程技术领域中的研究人员参考。
本书由陈式刚、郑伟谋审阅。