Product Description

As science probes the nature of life, society, and technology ever more closely, what it finds there is complexity. The sophisticated group behavior of social insects, the unexpected intricacies of the genome, the dynamics of population growth, and the self-organized structure of the World Wide Web - these are just a few examples of complex systems that still elude scientific understanding. Comprehending such systems seems to require a wholly new approach, one that goes beyond traditional scientific reductionism and that re-maps long-standing disciplinary boundaries. This remarkably accessible and companionable book, written by a leading complex systems scientist, provides an intimate, detailed 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. In this richly illustrated work, Melanie Mitchell describes in equal parts the history of ideas underlying complex systems science, the current research at the forefront of this field, and the prospects for the field's contribution to solving some of the most important scientific questions of our current century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42296 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Customer Reviews

An Outstanding Overview of the Subject
Many general books on "complexity" either lapse into "gee whiz" amazement at the novelty of the insights that emerge to challenge the conventional wisdom of "the enlightenment project", or else are somewhat abstruse and technical for the interested lay person to absorb. This book avoids both of those traps. If the title, "Complexity: A Guided Tour" conjures up images of some ill-informed tour guide providing a party of tourists with a mixture of fact and colourful "pseudo-fact" in the form of various apocryphal stories, then think again. This is much more akin to a personal guided tour of a stately home by one of the family that has lived there for generations. Dr. Mitchell's love of the subject never seems to lead her into making exaggerated claims, and her extensive knowledge and experience prevent her from presenting as "fact" the usual collection of myths that are repeated in the populist accounts of the subject. For anyone interested in gaining an understanding of what insights are emerging from this broad and diffuse field, this book provides as good a place to start as any - better than most. For those with an informed interest in certain aspects of the filed, this book provides an excellent context for the topic as a whole. This is a book that I cannot recommend too highly.

This an ideal book for beginners
This is an excellent book for postgraduate and people who are interested to know about "complexity". The author started with rabbits, ants and bees and finally explains on theoretical background of complexity. The book explains the "complexity" in different areas in science marvellously. I strongly recommend this book for beginners who are keen to understand "what is complexity".

Very interesting indeed
I found this book incredibly fascinating. It gives a good tour around Neuroscience, immune systems, ecosystems, programming and an array of different systems.

Although some of the bits could be seen as being too much detail, it's worth reading as the way of thinking described in the book is very different to the conventional ways.

It definitely got me playing with cellular automata which was a very new thing for me.