Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order And Chaos (Penguin Science S.)

Waldrop, M.Mitchell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140179682 ISBN 13: 9780140179682

Publisher: Penguin, 1994

In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell - and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today. This book is their story - the story of how they have tried to forge what they like to call "the science of the 21st century".

Review:

Heinz Pagels

physicist

"The Washington Post"

If you liked "Chaos," you'll love "Complexity." Waldrop creates the most exciting intellectual adventure story of the year.

Douglas R. Hofstadter

author of "Go tel, Esther, Bach"

One comes away from "Complexity" both intellectually excited by ideas and emotionally involved with the people struggling to formulate them. This is a deep tale of science in the making.

"The New York Times Book Review"

Lucidly shows physicists, biologists, computer scientists and economists swapping metaphors and reveling in the sense that epochal discoveries are just around the corner....[Waldrop] has a special talent for relaying the exhilaration of moments of intellectual insight.

"The Washington Post"

If you liked "Chaos, " you'll love "Complexity." Waldrop creates the most exciting intellectual adventure story of the year.

Heinz Pagels

physicist

I am convinced that the nations and people who master the new sciences of complexity will become the economic, cultural, and political superpowers of the next century.

Douglas R. Hofstadter

author of "Gotel, Esther, Bach"

One comes away from "Complexity" both intellectually excited by ideas and emotionally involved with the people struggling to formulate them. This is a deep tale of science in the making.

"The Washington Post"If you liked "Chaos," you'll love "Complexity." Waldrop creates the most exciting intellectual adventure story of the year.

Heinz PagelsphysicistI am convinced that the nations and people who master the new sciences of complexity will become the economic, cultural, and political superpowers of the next century.

Douglas R. Hofstadterauthor of "Gotel, Esther, Bach"One comes away from "Complexity" both intellectually excited by ideas and emotionally involved with the people struggling to formulate them. This is a deep tale of science in the making.

About the Author:

M. Mitchell Waldrop has his doctorate in elementary particle physics and is the author of Man-Made Minds. He spent ten years as a senior writer for Science magazine, where he is now a contributing correspondent.