Product Description

This comprehensive work investigates: the role of computers in the understanding of complexity; spontaneous emergence of order in the universe; how nature can solve problems that traditionally defeat scientists; and the likelihood that intelligence will evolve within computers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #539862 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
From the English team that brought you The Arrow of Time (1991), more on the general theme that the most interesting things in life are nonlinear, asymmetric, chaotic, and complex - in short, not user-friendly, but perhaps computable. Coveney, a senior research scientist at the Schlumberger Cambridge Research Laboratory, and Highfield, the Daily Telegraph's science editor, have combed the avantgarde labs from hither to von to come up with a review of virtually (no pun intended) all that's current and choice in modeling "complexity." The term, not easily defined, speaks to the interactions of subparts of systems that yield processes and outcomes that are greater than the sum of the parts. The weather, chemical reactions, population dynamics, "emergent" brain phenomena such as consciousness - all are complex phenomena challenging scores of researchers armed with the latest versions of computer-based cellular automata, neural networks, artificial intelligence, and so on. This is heady stuff, not easily absorbed in the short summaries that describe this or that particular model. On the other hand, chapters that sketch the background and the seminal ideas from Charles Babbage to Alan Turing, Kurt Godel, and John von Neumann are useful contexts for the vast array of examples the authors provide. When they do elaborate a model (for example, the use of infrared data to model at what point in time the ingredients of a cement slurry "set"), they are very good indeed. It is suggested that readers approach the last chapter first: It captures the authors' grand vision of what might be possible (e.g., molecular-based computers and a universal mind) but sounds a proper warning as well on what folly can also be wrought. Overall, their enthusiasm marks the authors as true believers that the efforts of mankind (yes, mostly men) to take on complexity, achieving both beauty and order, will succeed. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

A Detailed and continously good read
I brought this book about four, five years ago, it still reads brillantly well. The nature of the subjects would normally be engulfed by techinical terminolgy and professional expressions, but this book (although I tend to see it more as a series of linked essays, which is a good thing) has about it poetic pose of a well writtern and much tended novel.

The subjects are well researched and are still reliavent today. I must say that in those years since i've brought this book from a small book store I have never come across any other that captures my interest time and time again.

For anyone interested in the diverse subjects of complexity, life, intelligence and evolution, this is a must for any book-self.