This book consists of lecture notes for a semester-long introductory graduate course on dynamical systems and chaos taught by the authors at Texas A&M University and Zhongshan University, China. There are ten chapters in the main body of the book, covering an elementary theory of chaotic maps in finite-dimensional spaces. The topics include one-dimensional dynamical systems (interval maps), bifurcations, general topological, symbolic dynamical systems, fractals and a class of infinite-dimensional dynamical systems which are induced by interval maps, plus rapid fluctuations of chaotic maps as a new viewpoint developed by the authors in recent years. Two appendices are also provided in order to ease the transitions for the readership from discrete-time dynamical systems to continuous-time dynamical systems, governed by ordinary and partial differential equations.
