Physics of Self-Organization and Evolution

by Werner Ebeling, Werner Ebeling

This thoroughly updated version of the German authoritative work on self-organization has been completely rewritten by internationally renowned experts and experienced book authors to also include a review of more recent literature. It retains the original enthusiasm and fascination surrounding thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium, synergetics, and the origin of life, representing an easily readable book and tutorial on this exciting field. The book is unique in covering in detail the experimental and theoretical fundamentals of self-organizing systems as well as such selected features as random processes, structural networks and multistable systems, while focusing on the physical and theoretical modeling of natural selection and evolution processes. The authors take examples from physics, chemistry, biology and social systems, and include results hitherto unpublished in English.The result is a one-stop resource relevant for students and scientists in physics or related interdisciplinary fields, including mathematical physics, biophysics, information science and nanotechnology.

576 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Bryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with all books on the origin of life the author's theories are highly speculative. The reason for the two Star review is more for the books flaws of other sorts. First, it suffers from poor organization. The authors periodically wander off topic, sometimes for pages st a time. Secondly, there are pages and pages of math with integrals, derivatives and partial derivatives with often minimal explanation, and then to top it off the authors have the temerity to repeatedly use variations of the phrase, "it is obvious that . . ." Such things are rarely obvious to anyone but the authors. On the plus side, the authors do make a valiant attempt at breathing new life into what is essentially a rehashing of origin arguments that have long been considered unrealistic at best. Fortunately, in a few spots they do admit the current insurmountable difficulties in producing a compelling origin of life model.