Fifty years ago, a new approach to reaction kinetics began to emerge: one based on mathematical models of reaction kinetics, or formal reaction kinetics. Since then, there has been a rapid and accelerated development in both deterministic and shastic kinetics, primarily because mathematicians studying differential equations and algebraic geometry have taken an interest in the nonlinear differential equations of kinetics, which are relatively simple, yet capable of depicting complex behavior such as oscillation, chaos, and pattern formation.
The development of shastic models was triggered by the fact that novel methods made it possible to measure molecules individually. Now it is high time to make the results of the last half-century available to a larger audience: students of chemistry, chemical engineering and biochemistry, not to mention applied mathematics. Based on recent papers, this book presents the most important concepts and results, together with a wealth of solved exercises. The book is accompanied by the authors’ Mathematica package, ReactionKinetics, which helps both students and scholars in their everyday work, and which can be downloaded from http://extras.springer.com/ and also from the authors’ websites. Further, the large set of unsolved problems provided may serve as a springboard for individual research.