- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition edition (31 Dec 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226476553
- ISBN-13: 978-0226476551
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,066,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
"Put together one of the world's best science writers with one of the universe's most fascinating subjects and you are bound to produce a wonderful book. . . . The subject of complexity is vital and controversial. This book is important and beautifully done."--Stephen Jay Gould
"[Complexity] is that curious mix of complication and organization that we find throughout the natural and human worlds: the workings of a cell, the structure of the brain, the behavior of the stock market, the shifts of political power. . . . It is time science . . . thinks about meaning as well as counting information. . . . This is the core of the complexity manifesto. Read it, think about it . . . but don't ignore it."--Ian Stewart, "Nature"
This second edition has been brought up to date with an essay entitled "On the Edge in the Business World" and an interview with John Holland, author of "Emergence: From Chaos to Order."
"[Complexity] is that curious mix of complication and organization that we find throughout the natural and human worlds: the workings of a cell, the structure of the brain, the behavior of the stock market, the shifts of political power. . . . It is time science . . . thinks about meaning as well as counting information. . . . This is the core of the complexity manifesto. Read it, think about it . . . but don't ignore it."--Ian Stewart, "Nature"
This second edition has been brought up to date with an essay entitled "On the Edge in the Business World" and an interview with John Holland, author of "Emergence: From Chaos to Order."
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First Sentence
The climb was short but steep, more of a scramble really. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The climb was short but steep, more of a scramble really. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a fine introductory volume to the science of chaos maths and critical state theory. While it has a slight tendency to over-simplify issues in order to communicate with a popular audience, it cannot be faulted in range of reference and relevance. For any non-scientist, this would be an excellent introduction to this fascinating area of study.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rather triumphally, the blurb for Roger Lewin's new book describes the author as "arguably the best professional science journalist in the English-speaking world". Times may have moved on since this book's publication in 1993, but it is difficult to credit that claim on the strength of its contents. In Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos Roger Lewin fails to do many of the basic things that science reporting really ought to do. Like clearly expounding the theory in the first place.
Lewin starts with a long chapter on the remains of a civilisation at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. It is designed, I suppose, to exemplify the kernel of complexity theory. In an effort to be entertaining Lewin resorts to New Journalist techniques, recounting the hike into the canyon and even pausing to recount an episode of hayfever. This opening passage thus feels decidedly padded, and after ten pages (of a 200 page book) yields as its first dividend: "the phenomenon that may link these disparate worlds [being chemistry, physics, biology, economics and so on], including what propelled Chaco Canyon along its unique history, is called complexity".
Come again?
Lewin thereafter sketches what he means by complexity airily: that "dynamical" systems (can scientists resist elaborating for the sake of it - isn't the word "dynamic"?) will tend to behave, at an abstract level, in predictable ways: that the universe of evolutionary design space is constrained - heavily constrained, even - by architecture of a given ecosystem. At least, that's what I deduce him to be saying because whatever shape the book started out with is quickly lost as Lewin gallops around the leading academics in the evolutionary design space: Richard Dawkins, E. O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett, Stephen Jay Gould, Roger Penrose are among a host of names whose views are canvassed. Given the differences of opinion amongst them - in some cases, animosities run deep - it should be little surprise that the there of complexity Lewin sets out to describe remains elusive.
In the nearly 20 years since its publication there has been much literature about Evolution, but less talk of complexity, and while there are some interesting asides and snippets in this brief book, most of the interesting material in it - game theory, Conway's Game of Life, emergence, evolution and so on, have been covered more comprehensively and more recently by the academics Lewin mentions in this book.
Olly Buxton
Lewin starts with a long chapter on the remains of a civilisation at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. It is designed, I suppose, to exemplify the kernel of complexity theory. In an effort to be entertaining Lewin resorts to New Journalist techniques, recounting the hike into the canyon and even pausing to recount an episode of hayfever. This opening passage thus feels decidedly padded, and after ten pages (of a 200 page book) yields as its first dividend: "the phenomenon that may link these disparate worlds [being chemistry, physics, biology, economics and so on], including what propelled Chaco Canyon along its unique history, is called complexity".
Come again?
Lewin thereafter sketches what he means by complexity airily: that "dynamical" systems (can scientists resist elaborating for the sake of it - isn't the word "dynamic"?) will tend to behave, at an abstract level, in predictable ways: that the universe of evolutionary design space is constrained - heavily constrained, even - by architecture of a given ecosystem. At least, that's what I deduce him to be saying because whatever shape the book started out with is quickly lost as Lewin gallops around the leading academics in the evolutionary design space: Richard Dawkins, E. O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett, Stephen Jay Gould, Roger Penrose are among a host of names whose views are canvassed. Given the differences of opinion amongst them - in some cases, animosities run deep - it should be little surprise that the there of complexity Lewin sets out to describe remains elusive.
In the nearly 20 years since its publication there has been much literature about Evolution, but less talk of complexity, and while there are some interesting asides and snippets in this brief book, most of the interesting material in it - game theory, Conway's Game of Life, emergence, evolution and so on, have been covered more comprehensively and more recently by the academics Lewin mentions in this book.
Olly Buxton
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read Chaos by James Gleick this book was recommended in the pages of Physics World magazine as a sort of follow up and it didn't disappoint. Gave me a lot to think about.
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