Preface

Summary

This book had its origins in a workshop held in Cape Town from June 27 to 2 July 1994, with participants from South Africa, USA, Canada, UK, Sweden, Germany, and India. The meeting considered in depth recent progress in analyzing the evolution and structure of cosmological models from a dynamical systems viewpoint, and the relation of this work to various other approaches (particularly Hamiltonian methods). This book is however not a conference report. It was written by some of the conference participants, based on what they presented at the workshop but altered and extended after reflection on what was learned there, and then extensively edited so as to form a coherent whole. This process has been very useful: a considerable increase in understanding has resulted, particularly through the emphasis on relating the results of the qualitative analysis to possible observational tests. Apart from describing the development of the subject and what is presently known, the book serves to delineate many areas where the answers are still unknown. The intended readers are graduate students or research workers from either discipline (cosmological modeling or dynamical systems theory) who wish to engage in research in the area, tackling some of these unsolved problems.

The role of the two editors has been somewhat different.