Kelly's review
Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen by Mark Buchanan
Kelly's review
rating:
recommended for: people who are interested in catastrophes and like a good dose of hard science
status: Read in July, 2008
rating:
recommended for: people who are interested in catastrophes and like a good dose of hard science
status: Read in July, 2008
This is an interesting exploration of the reasons that many types of catastrophes are genuinely unpredictable. The explanation has to do with chaos theory and more. It reminds me in some ways of The Tipping Point, primarily because one of the key examples in the book is of a sandpile that is stable until one particular grain of sand causes an avalanche (although this book is more scientifically robust). It's a pretty interesting read, but at times I found it a bit challenging, even though Buchanan generally writes at a good level for popular science. I also did not find the book as interesting as I did one of his other books, Nexus.
