Mathematics has the power to make adults pull out their hair in frustration, and small children weep, so why couldn’t it be used to send global terrorists packing?

Bermuda-based writer John Madiro thinks he has found a way to use some complex formulas and graphs to predict the activities of terrorists. He is about to release a book called ‘Combating Global Terrorism With Non-Linear Chaotic Dynamics’.”I decided to write this book because I believe that terrorism doesn’t just affect the United States, or England,” Dr. Madiro told the Royal Gazette. “Anyone can be a potential victim if you travel, or even if you stay home.”Dr. Madiro is a computer scientist who was born in Zimbabwe. He has degrees in astrophysics and education and is currently a physics, information technology, and maths teaching specialist for the Center for Talented Youth Lab School, a Bermuda Ministry of Education and Johns Hopkins University joint venture.

“The book has a strong mathematical basis,” said Dr. Madiro. “Non-linear chaotic dynamics is a beautiful mathematical theory. It is a new branch of mathematics that was developed as recently as 1978.”Dr. Madiro hopes that his book will be of interest to strategists, students and the people who are charged with investigating terrorism.

In the book, he introduces the reader to a brief theory of Nonlinear Chaotic Dynamics.

“I then walk the reader across the simplified beauty of the discipline through the use the base equations called ‘logistic equations’ and their corresponding diagram,” he said. “These simplified equations deliver a brute force in cracking the understanding of how terrorist groups develop and enter into chaos. These equations act as the basis of models in which as we substitute certain values, their solutions exhibit very interesting behaviour that can be explained using known chaos theories.”

In the book, he explained chaotic dynamic terms such as ‘strange attractor’, ‘repelling and saddle points’, ‘dieter’s fork’, ‘skinny baker’, ‘chaos snake’, ‘symbolic dynamics’, among others.

“An introduction of fractional dimensions, through the Julia and Mandelbrot equations, lends the reader into an interesting analysis of fractals as matched to terrorist activities,” he said. Dr. Madiro said his love of technology and humanity inspired him to write the book.”I would be hurt to see the civilisation just perishing into the hands of terror or people who don’t regard life or structures or development,” he said.

He said he wanted to fight global terrorism, but he is not a solider, so he decided to use the best weapon he had - his brain. It took him three to four years to research the book.

“I have visited the FBI websites, CIA and RAND,” he said. “I have also followed the news items from various countries, and meshed that with some of the stories I have heard from people in the field itself. The trajectory of the development of all these terror activities over a long period all have similar hallmarks or signatures. So they have a trend which could be followed. That is why it mapped very well into this theory which I am using.”

Although the idea of reading a book about complex mathematical theorems might scare some people, Dr. Madiro said the book is not only for the mathematically powerful reader, but can also be read by the ordinary person.

“You may read it without looking at the formulas,” he said. “You may read it just by looking at the diagrams and the explanation of the diagrams. It can give you a clearer picture of this world we are living in, and how terrorists operate. Students who are studying strategy are going to find this book very useful because it brings a non-conventional way of looking at things and makes the students be aware of how mathematics can be used to prevent terrorism.”

He thought his theories might even have been used to prevent the Virginia Tech shootings.

“What chaos theory shows you is the dependence of behaviour or a function on initial conditions,” he said. “If you have a function that has been subjected to different initial conditions, when time passes, the outcome of that function can be predicted.”

He said the theory could be applied to different areas of terrorist activities, such as financial transactions.

“If the financial transactions of a person associated with terrorism develops a certain pattern you know that this is not a normal transaction.”

However, he admitted that human behaviour has so many variables that it can be difficult to predict, even using mathematics.”I could warn that such a theory can not be assumed to be applied dry as it is, but can be used as a reference tool,” he said.

This is not the first time Dr. Madiro has used his own creativity for the betterment of mankind. He has founded his own charity called Aid 4 Africa. Last year, under this banner, he rode 900 miles from Lands End in the southern tip of England to John O’Groats, the northern point of Scotland. The ride took 74 intense riding hours spread through six days. The money raised is going to help African orphans.

Next year, he plans to cycle the Western and East Sahara Deserts and may also take a balloon ride.The book is available at www.amazon.com . The ISBN number is 978-1-897403-13-6 .

To learn more about Dr. Madiro’s charity, go to http://www.aid4africa.org/intro.html .Contact the Bookworm Beat at www.bookwormbeat1@hotmail.com .