Frontiers of Complexity: The Search for Order in a Chaotic World

by Peter & Roger Highfield. Coveney, Roger Highfield

Accessible yet rigorous, this book goes far beyond most popularizations of "chaos" theory and presents the science of complexity, its historical origins, and current applications to cosmology, particle physics, ecology, evolution, and neurobiology. The emphasis on scientific computation and visualization as the microscope and lab bench of this new science is particularly welcome. Very Highly Recommended.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Mathematics, Theory, Philosophy, Physics

1 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[May Ling]

This book is very well written. It's simply not what I expected. It dealt more with advances in computing then in the concept of complexity. While advances in computing have lead to an ability to manage higher orders and levels of complexity, it's not quite as fun as a book on complexity.

It would be a good book for someone who is interested in the history of complexity.

[Varad Deshmukh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very sluggish and hard book to read. I have to agree that its very informative and gave me some new insights into the field of complex systems. On the other hand, it's a 1995 publication, so a lot of recent developments in the field are missing. For example, the huge area of networks doesn't find a place in the book (maybe a bit via Neural Networks).

What made the book hard to read was the bombardment of information without much of a focus on developing the intuition. It seemed more like the "Related Work" section of a research paper -- which I usually like to skim through and come back later only when required. "Life as we know" is the slowest chapter in the book -- I am no expert in DNA's and RNA's, and I got lost in their details instead of grasping the intuitive ideas of complexity in life.

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my! Although this was written when I was a wee boy of six (and now I'm a large man of twenty nine), it holds up. Visionary. It's getting me all riled up on the thin line between chaos and order. Truly a beautiful place to sit! Never read this book unless you are feeling odd or want to know whats up. Onward!

[David Antoš · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book itself might not be anyhow extraordinary and today could be also dated. But it introduced me into topics which I never knew about before and which had fundamental impact on my perception of the world.

[Ian Kuhn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although sadly outdated bybthisnpoint in time it was still interesting to see how some of the hypotheses posted in the book panned out o e the years.

[Paul Hartzog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I really liked this book, it is not for everyone.

There are 2 kinds of books on complex systems (and sciencey things in general): 1) shallow, 2) deep. The shallow ones act as a great introduction to a topic and are perfect for the general reader. The deep ones are usually academic and only valuable if you already know a lot about the subject matter. Both of them find a willing audience.

This book probably won't. It is a great overview of a lot of things IF you already understand complex systems pretty well, because it goes into more detail than most people will really understand or want to read. In other words, it is too shallow for the academics and too deep for the general reader.

But for me, it was great! (I already know the material well, and I really just wanted to see someone else's overview and their choices for how to present the breadth and depth of complex systems in a coherent way.)

On a final practical note, this books spends too much time talking about artificial intelligence and artificial life and completely skips over swarming and ecosystems. It really should have been shorter and included more things that typically come under the umbrella of complex systems.

[Michael Kerwin]

What an awesome book. Not only does it discuss Chaos Theory and how it pertains to everything from quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, evolution, and mathematics, but it brings to light the many interesting "characters" of science, like Turing and Von Neumann who contributed and are contributing to this multi-disciplinary field.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers many areas of complexity in detail, although its focus mostly seems to be the effect that advancing computer/simulation technology has on modeling and understanding complex systems. Although by now some of its summaries are out of date it is still an excellent overview of the field.

[Wendy]

(found read date in diary)