Complexity: A Guided Tour - Softcover

Mitchell, Melanie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199798109 ISBN 13: 9780199798100

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

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 this title

Review:

Melanie Mitchell's book is most enjoyable, truly inspiring, skillfully written, and, above all, beautifully clear. The author's enthusiasm and passion for the field make the book fascinating to read. Her rigor, clarity, and healthy skepticism make the book sound and the field scientifically stronger. It is an excellent and rigorous account of the scientific field of complexity. She proves by example that it is possible to explain complex systems science with rigor, breadth, depth, and- above all-exquisite clarity. (Artificial Life)

About the Author:

Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0199798109
• ISBN 13: 9780199798100
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 366