Name: Complexity
ISBN: 9780671872342

Mitchell M. Waldrop

A look at the rebellious thinkers who are challenging old ideas with their insights into the ways countless elements of complex systems interact to produce spontaneous order out of confusion

The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

Complexity

M. Mitchell Waldrop

“If you liked Chaos, you’ll love Complexity. Waldrop creates the most exciting intellectual adventure story of the year” (The Washington Post). 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 twenty-first century. “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 New York Times Book Review “Where I enjoyed the book was when it dove into the actual question of complexity, talking about complex systems in economics, biology, genetics, computer modeling, and so on. Snippets of rare beauty here and there almost took your breath away.” —Medium “[Waldrop] provides a good grounding of what may indeed be the first flowering of a new science.” —Publishers Weekly

Keven Wang

A look at the rebellious thinkers who are challenging old ideas with insights into ways countless elements of complex systems interact to produce spontaneous order out of confusion discusses politics, economics, and biology. 40,000 first printing.

Justin

Complexity is a great combination of storytelling and science. It offers an overview of some of the key elements of complexity science, as well as the story of how the Santa Fe Institute came to be. 

While the narrative can drag on at times, the passion and excitement from the people that cobbled the institute together is palpable, and added some entrepreneurial energy to the book. 

A strength of this book is how it builds up the science over time: a description of one scientist's work followed by how someone else came across it at a workshop and then how they built on it to explain one more element of complexity. Rather than just explaining complexity head on, it brings you through the whole process of discovery, which allows you to see the connections and how different facets build upon each other. It felt like a much deeper exploration.

Complexity The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

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