Experimental Nonlinear Physics

Abstract

The review gives and account of the historical development, the current state and possible future developments of experimental nonlinear physics, with emphasis on acoustics, hydrodynamics and optics. The concepts of nonlinear time-series analysis which are the basis of the analysis of experimental outcomes from nonlinear systems are explained and recent developments pertaining to such different fields as modeling, prediction, nonlinear noise reduction, detecting determinism, synchronization, and spatio-temporal time series are surveyed. An overview is given of experiments on acoustic cavitation, a field rich of nonlinear phenomena such as nonlinear oscillations, chaotic dynamics and structure formation, and one of the first physical systems to exhibit period-doubling and chaos in experiment.