Complexity - The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

M. Mitchell Waldrop

Penguin Books Ltd

1994

384 páginas

12h 48m

ISBN-10: 0140179682

How has the universe created such complex structures as galaxies, planets, plants, animals and brains? Why does the economy work unpredictable ways which cannot even be explained by economists? How can we account for such wonderfully intricate structures as the eye and kidney?
This important and highly readable book show how all of these examples complex mechanisms are at work, in which numerous independent agents interact with each other creating spontaneous self-organization within the system, a special dynamism emerging at the edge of chaos. Research into this extraordinary new field is based at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, founded by a small group of biologists, economists, computer scientists and physicists who are moving away from the linear, reductionist thinking that has dominated science since Newton's time. This book offers a lively and compelling picture of the work in progress.