Complexity cover art

Complexity

The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos

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Complexity

By: M. Mitchell Waldrop
Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
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About this listen

“If you liked Chaos, you’ll love Complexity. Waldrop creates the most exciting intellectual adventure story of the year” (The Washington Post).

In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.

This book is their story--the story of how they have tried to forge what they like to call the science of the 21st century.

“Lucidly shows physicists, biologists, computer scientists and economists swapping metaphors and reveling in the sense that epochal discoveries are just around the corner...[Waldrop] has a special talent for relaying the exhilaration of moments of intellectual insight.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“Where I enjoyed the book was when it dove into the actual question of complexity, talking about complex systems in economics, biology, genetics, computer modeling, and so on. Snippets of rare beauty here and there almost took your breath away.” (Medium)

“[Waldrop] provides a good grounding of what may indeed be the first flowering of a new science.” (Publishers Weekly)

Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

©1995 M. Mitchell Waldrop (P)2020 Audible, Inc.
History History & Philosophy Philosophy Physics Science World Mathematics Artificial Intelligence Capitalism Socialism Computer Science
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The account of scientists discovering complexity in the 1980s is interesting but what has happened since 1982?

OK but 28 y since publication

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the book described a fascinating experiment in the organisation of multidisciplinary science and is really inspiring. The audio version is more about the players than the achievements.

santa fe as a model

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There are some interesting points raised in the beginning of the book. The rest of the book is basically just fillers... really boring

The first few hours was interesting the rest was really boring

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