- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; New edition edition (26 Feb 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0471196932
- ISBN-13: 978-0471196938
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,881,148 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
"As we approach a new century, modelling through new mathematical insights and powerful computers grows apace. John Casti has written a truly important book."––The Sunday Times (London).
"As a popular account of the enormous change computers have brought to the everyday practice of science, it is an easy and enjoyable read."––Nature.
"Would–Be Worlds gives a spectacular view of this new intellectual landscape."––New Scientist
Acclaimed popular science writer John Casti takes us on a fascinating romp through the remarkable simulated worlds being fashioned from the bits and bytes of computers. A new generation of technological marvels now enables scientists to recreate lifelike computer models to better everything from traffic patterns and the stock market to weather systems and the working of human brains.
JOHN L. CASTI, PhD, (Santa Fe, New Mexico) is a resident researcher at the Santa Fe Institute and a professor at the Institute for Economics, Operations Research, and System Theory at the Technical University of Vienna. He is the author of Searching for Certainty, Paradigms Lost, Complexification and Five Golden Rules (Wiley).
From the Back Cover
Critical acclaim for How Simulation Is Changing the Frontiers of Science
"John Casti is one of the great science writers of the 1990s." —San Francisco Examiner.
"A popular account of the enormous change computers have brought to the everyday practice of science . . . an easy and enjoyable read." —Nature.
"As we approach a new century, modelling through new mathematical insights and powerful computers grows apace . . . .John Casti has written a truly important book." —The Sunday Times.
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Contrary to popular belief, the world's greatest sporting event in terms of prolonged, worldwide interest is not the Olympic Games. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Contrary to popular belief, the world's greatest sporting event in terms of prolonged, worldwide interest is not the Olympic Games. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Useful non-technical treatment of modelling & simulation,
By A Customer
This review is from: Would-be-worlds: How Simulation is Changing the Frontiers of Science (Hardcover)
Casti is a lucid and entertaining writer and has sufficient depth in his own subject and breadth in other disciplines as to be well placed to write a book on modelling and simulation. This is an excellent introduction to some of the mathematical, logical, and philosophical problems of and raised by the increasing use of simulation to investigate 'real-world' problems. It assumes no background beyond a general interest in science.If this book has weaknesses they tend to be of the variety that afflicts much modern writing in popular science. Editors rather than authors, perhaps? A sizeable portion of the plates and diagrams add nothing to the book ("gee, John, this is a popular science book - we gotta have some pictures") plus a preference for rushing to mine the next source of the 'gee-whiz' factor rather than grappling with consequences. The strapline on the cover is 'how simulation is changing the frontiers of science' and I'm not at all sure that this question is answered. The last chapter makes an unconvincing attempt to be a summary, but is in fact the least interesting of the five trailing off rather weakly into a 'what we really need is a theory of complex systems' position. But, the acid test - did I learn anything from this book? Most definitely, yes. - Ashley Oliver
2.0 out of 5 stars
Shallow,
By
This review is from: Would-be-worlds: How Simulation is Changing the Frontiers of Science (Hardcover)
It always worries me when the cover of a book bears a legend such as 'Critical acclaim for John Casti's previous book', followed by glowing extracts from said 'acclaim'. Personally I'd rather read critical acclaim for the book I'm about to buy, so are they trying to hide something? The clear implication is that this book is going to be every bit as good as the last one, and that all the comments we see here will no doubt apply equally to both. I'm not convinced.Casti's book is a nominally a tour of computer simulation, focusing on 'the science of surprise' (complexity and emergence), but it's really little more than a shallow survey of other people's work cemented together with some dry philosophising about models and simulations. It's a reasonable idea, but at a little over 200 pages it's clear that there isn't enough meat here to warrant a whole book. It's a highly episodic read, which gives the impression that it's been compiled from shorter works; most annoyingly, though, the sort of fleshing-out that would have made it truly interesting is entirely absent and we are repeatedly directed to the references after only the briefest introduction to a piece of research. The book reads very like A K Dewdney's 'Computer Recreations' anthologies but with far less substance and a somewhat narrower theme. As an account of the field it purports to cover it offers little that hasn't been done much better in books such as Steven Levy's Artificial Life , James Gleick's Chaos and Roger Lewin's Complexity, to name an arbitrary few. To borrow a phrase from the anonymous New Scientist correspondent quoted on the cover, I'd suggest that Would-be Worlds is little more than a tour d'horizon.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Useful non-technical treatment of modelling & simulation,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Would-be-worlds: How Simulation is Changing the Frontiers of Science (Hardcover)
Casti is a lucid and entertaining writer and has sufficient depth in his own subject and breadth in other disciplines as to be well placed to write a book on modelling and simulation. This is an excellent introduction to some of the mathematical, logical, and philosophical problems of and raised by the increasing use of simulation to investigate 'real-world' problems. It assumes no background beyond a general interest in science.If this book has weaknesses they tend to be of the variety that afflicts much modern writing in popular science. Editors rather than authors, perhaps? A sizeable portion of the plates and diagrams add nothing to the book ("gee, John, this is a popular science book - we gotta have some pictures") plus a preference for rushing to mine the next source of the 'gee-whiz' factor rather than grappling with consequences. The strapline on the cover is 'how simulation is changing the frontiers of science' and I'm not at all sure that this question is answered. The last chapter makes an unconvincing attempt to be a summary, but is in fact the least interesting of the five trailing off rather weakly into a 'what we really need is a theory of complex systems' position. But, the acid test - did I learn anything from this book? Most definitely, yes. - Ashley Oliver 6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A book with a good question!,
By N. Emrah AYDINONAT - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Would-be-worlds: How Simulation is Changing the Frontiers of Science (Paperback)
This is one of those books that address important questions. But unfortunately it is not always possible to answer these important questions. This book is about "would-be-worlds", on computer simulations of real life phenomena. The question is how can one explain real world facts with such simulations that look extremely distant from the real world. Good question, but it is very hard to answer. Casti does not answer this question, he has attempts, for example the section "Models for All Occasions" is a good step, but he can not deliver the good. Why? Maybe because he spends a lot of space introducing and discussing various examples of simulations. Maybe because he did not want to play the "philosopher of science" in this book. I do not know, but most probably he thinks that these computational models, and simulations are useful anyway. So he does not tell us how we can trust these models, but he tries to amaze us with these models. But is that bad? No!Although practical and philosophical questions about computer simulations are very important there are still few people thinking about these issues. Casti's book directs attention to these issues and questions. Moreover, this is a book for the layman! Thus, it is good to introduce different sorts of would-be-worlds. Casti is excellent in introducing things! Briefly, although Casti does not tell how it is possible to make inferences about the real world from such artificial worlds, this is a good book to start thinking about the philosophy and methodology of explaining with computer simulations. 5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkably mediocre book,
By "smokey_joe" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Would-be-worlds: How Simulation is Changing the Frontiers of Science (Hardcover)
As someone who enjoys popular science books, dabbles in complexity theory, and works in modeling and simulation, I was really looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it is not well structured and the author seems to be unable to decide whether he's writing about complexity or M&S. Yes, they are intertwined, but there are several books that treat the subject of complexity very well. What I was looking forward to here was a behind the scenes look at the experimental aparatus of complexity theory: Modeling and Simulation. Whether its due to lack of understanding of the art of M&S or an excessive love affair with complexity, the book comes off half-heartedly discussing both. If you want to learn about complexity, read something by John Holland. If you want to learn about M&S, read anything but this.
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