Title:The spiral in our midst - how it looks and what it does 


Abstract:
I will be presenting a review of the literature on the observational signatures of the Milky Way spiral pattern 
and the dynamical implications of such measurements for the Galaxy. The literature on the different models 
involved in this inferential exercise will be examined to advance the most updated version of our 
understanding of Galactic spirality. The chaos-inducing efficacy of the spiral pattern will be discussed within 
the broader concept of non-linearities in the dynamics that describe evolution in the Galaxy and the 
accompanying idea of multi-modality of the Galactic phase space. The dynamical signature of transient 
spirals will also be included in the discussions.