Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell

Free download audio book.

Original Title: Complexity

ISBN: 0195124413
ISBN13: 9780195124415
Autor: Melanie Mitchell
Rating: 3.1 of 5 stars (987) counts
Original Format: Hardcover, 349 pages
Download Format: PDF, TXT, ePub, iBook.
Published: April 1st 2009 / by Oxford University Press, USA / (first published March 2nd 2009)
Language: English
Genre(s):
Science- 122 users
Nonfiction- 64 users
Science >Mathematics- 17 users
Science >Computer Science- 11 users

Description:

What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a
group? How do trillions of neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as
consciousness? In this remarkably clear and companionable book, leading complex systems
scientist Melanie Mitchell provides an intimate tour of the sciences of complexity, a broad set of
efforts that seek to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can
emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals. Based on her work at the Santa Fe
Institute and drawing on its interdisciplinary strategies, Mitchell brings clarity to the workings of
complexity across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out
the general principles or laws that apply to all of them. Richly illustrated, Complexity: A Guided
Tour--winner of the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science--offers a wide-ranging overview
of the ideas underlying complex systems science, the current research at the forefront of this field,
and the prospects for its contribution to solving some of the most important scientific questions of
our time.

About Author:

Other Editions:
- Complexity: A Guided Tour (Kindle Edition)

- Complexity: A Guided Tour (Paperback)

- Complexity (ebook)
- (Hardcover)

- (Paperback)

Books By Author:

- An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms

- Good Night: A Touch & Feel Bedtime Book

 - Good Morning, Good Night!: A Touch & Feel Bedtime Book

- Are You Ticklish? (Touch & Tickle Book)

- From Maple Tree to Syrup (Start to Finish)

Books In The Series:

Related Books On Our Site:

- Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order

 - Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of
Social Life

- At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and
Complexity

- Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

- Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity

- Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos

- The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars

- Diversity and Complexity

- A World Without Ice

- Absolutely Small: How Quantum Theory Explains Our Everyday World

- Darwin's Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England

- Collider: The Search for the World's Smallest Particles

- Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks

 - Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing

- Does God Play Dice?: The New Mathematics of Chaos

- The Perfect Swarm: The Science of Complexity in Everyday Life

- The Shape of Inner Space: String Theory and the Geometry of the Universe's
Hidden Dimensions
 - A New Kind of Science

Rewiews:

Jun 16, 2015

Fortunr
Rated it: really liked it
Shelves: science-and-maths
Nice introductory book about a number of topics in the emerging field of "complexity".
Complexity is a very broad subject, still under significant theoretical development, that touches
upon many scientific fields such as biology, computer sciences, information theory, genetics,
network theory etc, so this book occasionally feels a bit disjointed (which is unavoidable
considering the nature of the subject) - it must be said however that the author manages to
convey, in a clear manner, the main fe
Nice introductory book about a number of topics in the emerging field of "complexity".
Complexity is a very broad subject, still under significant theoretical development, that touches
upon many scientific fields such as biology, computer sciences, information theory, genetics,
network theory etc, so this book occasionally feels a bit disjointed (which is unavoidable
considering the nature of the subject) - it must be said however that the author manages to
convey, in a clear manner, the main features of this fascinating field of research.
Fascinating topics such as chaos theory (with a concise but very nice explanation of the "logistic
map" example, which is a classic introductory subject), are competently treated by the author, and
with enthusiasm and clarity. In particular, the author explains clearly how apparent randomness
and chaotic behavior can arise even from very simple deterministic systems.
Fundamental concepts are also addressed in a lucid way: starting from the concept of information,
down to the very concept of complexity (considered from a computational, entropic, fractal, logical
depth, thermodynamical, and statistical perspectives).
Fascinating examples and studies of complexity (and even of life-like behavior) arising as
emergent phenomena in structures as conceptually simple as "cellular automata" (even a simple
two-state cellular automaton has been demonstrated capable of universal computation), provide
real food for thought.
The technique of "genetic algorithms" provides amazing results and demonstrate how complex
solutions and "intelligent" behavior can emerge even from the simplest set of rules.
The relationship between computability and natural structures is also explored, with fascinating
insights. The idea of life as essentially an information-processing phenomenon is quite appealing
too.
Overall, the author explains very effectively, and convincingly, the great importance of thinking
about complex systems in terms of nonlinearity, decentralized control, distributed feedback
mechanisms, controlled randomness and statistical representation of information, and that a
simplistic reductionist approach (according too which the global behavior of a system can be
simply deduced from knowledge of the individual components) is in many case totally inadequate.
This is an enjoyable book for anyone who is interested in an introduction to the study of
complexity, especially if you have a background in computer sciences.
13 likes
4 comments