5 comments about Seven Life Lessons of Chaos: Spiritual Wisdom from the Science of Change.

1. I absolutely enjoyed this book and found it completely relevant to my life. I have been quoting it since I read it!



2. It is precious stone plenty of wisdom that invites you to see the world and the life from an holistic perspective.
   I have enjoyed each paragraph bringing each message or concept to my own daily experience.
   I strongly recommend it.



3. I purchased this book for a class and told all of my friends about it. It is a perfect explanation of the theory. Real world examples - easy to understand. READ IT!



4. Chaos theory is fascinating, greatly fascinating, and this is a fascinating book about it. It's just beautiful.



5. When life is pulling you in a certain direction, yield a little to the current. You might be amazed at what you find. The key is, it doesn't pay to fight the universe. Absorb the chaos theory as put forth by this book and it can change your life or, at the very least, your way of thinking.

5 comments about Emergence: From Chaos To Order (Helix Books).

1. The review says "Think of the food replicators in the imaginary future of Star Trek--with some basic chemical building blocks and simple rules, those machines can produce everything from Klingon delicacies to Earl Grey tea. If scientists can understand and apply the knowledge they gather from studying emergent systems, we may soon witness the development of artificial intelligence, nanotech, biological machines, and other creations heretofore confined to science fiction." -- What?? Like we are about to make food replicators because of the "deep understanding" that we now have of emergent systems??

   I agree with the other reviewer who says the book is characteristically weak. The cover is prettier than Hidden Order. But so what.

   There have to be better books on complexity than this for the average popular science reader.




2. Parts of this book were interesting, but overall it was much ado about not much, and what was done was often overdone (I agree with another reviewer on this point). I see that Amazon has coupled this book with Hidden Order. I can't see why. It would be like buying the same book twice. Anyway, so much of this has been warmed over so many times now that it's frankly a bit dry. I'd like to see a book that really breaks new ground in complexity without overusing buzz words or talking down to me, holding my hand through simple things. Here, the topic is more attractive than the content I'm afraid. Anyone really interested in complexity and emergence will need to go into technical details well beyond this book. Others, like me, will likely find the details that are here to be a bit tedious.



3. After 7 years from its publication it still gives a valid and fundamental approach to the concepts of emergence and its meaning



4. I just read Emergence in preperation for my oral qualifying exams for a Ph.D. in computer science and cognitive science. I disagree with many of the negative reviewers -- this book is well-worth the read. I share some frustration over this book due to the way it seems to scratch the surface. The book's strength seems to be in asking the right questions and pointing the way towards some future science of emergent behavior.
   
   The book is too short for my taste -- in many of the later chapters Holland makes thought-provoking, deep remarks, without the follow-up and commentary that they leave me hoping for. But again, his main purpose seems to be in making people think about the issues. And he provides some formalisms that might be part of some future theory -- his constrained generating procedures (CGPs) and the variable "CGP-v" recall constructs such as the Turing machine for studying computability.
   
   The strengths of the book lie in:
   
   1) Discussion of the nature of modeling in science, and computer modeling in particular. This is discussed with clarity and pragmatism.
   
   2) The beginnings of a framework in which to study emergence in multi-agent systems.
   
   3) Discussion of the importance of metaphor/analogy in the creative scientific process. I didn't expect this to appear in the book but it was very welcome, and especially appropriate due to the role played by Mitchell's and Hofstadter's "Copycat" model (of analog-making itself) as it motivates the expansion of CGPs to CGP-v's as the book progresses.
   
   Overall, I recommend this book highly to readers interested in the beginnings of this exciting new science, that really is in its infancy. I gave it 4 stars just because I felt like Holland had a lot more to say in the later chapters and left too much "as an exercise for the reader." I hope he does follow-on work that clarifies his vision for a future science of emergence!



5. Expands on Holland's previous book Hidden Order. It presents an interesting method for understanding complexity and emergence. Highly recommended for those attempting to understand complex adaptive systems.

2 comments about Earthship: Systems and Components vol. 2.

1. I went to Taos and toured some of the "Earth Ship" houses, and they were wonderful. I bought the books there and read them cover to cover (on the way home). These books are full of good, practical, information. If you have access to old tires, empty cans, clay mud, you could build your own house. I haven't done a house yet, but I've done some other interesting projects using these principles. This particular book deal most with the parts of an Earth Ship house and how they all work together. It has more how to information than the others, I thought.



2. Michael Reynolds definately walks the walk. I first heard of Earthships several years ago, but didn't give it much thought until, driving just beyond the Rio Grande Gorge outside of Taos, I saw a collection of them. To say I was impressed would be an understatement. What Michael has done, first publicized to my knowledge in this book, has been astonishing.
   
   The book talks about his concept of the Earthship, how to build them, how they work, and how you, too can live virtually independant of the large grid of services available to you, and that in many ways makes you work for the system itself!
   
   This book of ideas has evolved and been thoroughly vetted in real life in 3 developments around Taos and countless other places in the world (mostly in the Western US) -- so it is a lot less experimental than you might think. The novelty mostly resides with our unfamiliarity with the Earthship.
   
   The structures are partially buried, with load bearing walls made of earth rammed old tyres, non load bearing walls built of cans, with greywater systems supported by rain catchwater. PV and wind powered, with food and other plants grown in the house, the premise is as close to total self sufficiency as one might be able to get. Philosophically, nearly a perfect expression of that desire. Practically, it seems to deliver, which sets itself apart from many other building methods and philosophies.
   
   In this age of unreliable utilities, uncertain prices of fuels, corrupt business leaders, bankrupt corporations and politics bought and paid for by institutions whose motives are quentionable, such a book and underlying philosphy seems relevant like no other time similar except the early 1970's.
   
   To some, this book of building a low cost shelter might help someone get into a nice house where they might not have otherwise, to others this might be a manifesto, still others might have the engineering appeal strike the most resonant cord.
   
   Either way, this is a MUST HAVE for at least my bookshelf. I went ahead and got #2 and #3 as well!

5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Operations Research.

1. Originally the book of Richard Bronson(1982) was very useful for the solution of simple problems, then a difficult one, but it is always required a text book accompany this. The students of my classes need all the time solved problems to practice.



2. i found this book to be a very helpfull tool a long with my text book.it excels in its simplicity and a wide varity of examples and solved problems written in plain english.
   hope you like it too.
   thank you.
   M. Madain.



3. Some of the primary tools used by operations researchers are statistics, optimization, stochastics, queueing theory, game theory, graph theory, and simulation. Because of the computational nature of these fields operations research also has ties to computer science, and thus this outline is useful to people from both fields. OR is concerned with optimization problems in which one seeks to maximize or minimize a specific quantity. The first part of this book is on optimization via linear, integer, and nonlinear programming. Next, network analysis is covered. Network analysis is the general name given to certain specific techniques which can be used for the planning, management and control of projects. Two different techniques for network analysis were developed independently in the late 1950's - PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path Management). These techniques are also covered in the outline. The next subject tackled is that of inventory models - allowing shortages, allowing price discounts, risk conditions, etc., and their mathematical modeling. Game theory, decision theory, and dynamic programming are all explained in the context of inventory models and forecasting. Finally, there is coverage of Markov chains and queueing theory. Queuing Theory arises from the use of mathematical analysis to theoretically describe production processes along with statistical/probabilistic techniques to account for varying dynamic patterns within the stages of a productive process. The problem to be met is simply entitled "congestion", what happens when a system does not operate smoothly or efficiently.
   I really liked this Schaum's outline, and I used it to teach myself most of the mathematical processes covered without the need for any additional resources. The theory is given in small doses along with very illustrative examples. The mathematics starts with simple algebra and works up to nothing more complex than probability and statistics. I highly recommend it for anybody enrolled in an operations research class as well as computer scientists and mathematics students that are studying any subset of the topics covered in this book.



4. First of all, be careful, this is not a text book. It has a good presentation for problem solution. First, there are a some solved problems, then supplementary problems are coming. The answers of supplementary problems are at the end of the book.
   
   This book might be useful for beginners. For every topic, there are easy problems, not specific problems similar to case studies. If you are over beginner degree, this book will not be useful for you. Especially, integer programming sections are not satisfactory. For instance, there isn't any facility location problem solution.
   
   To sum-up this book may be useful for a beginner as a workbook.



5. Very good classical book for operational research. I would like to find informations about value of information using markov chains and linear programing.

5 comments about The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.

1. I do not recommend you read this book unless you are an academic in the field and need to do so. Although I am unsympathetic with many of the ideas in it, the primary reason for my low rating is that the book was overlong and poorly written where it matters.
   
   I'll start with what I liked about the book. The first chapters were on the history of evolutionary theory, and it is here where Gould's principal strength as a popularizer comes through well. Although these chapters could have been more concise, and they were oriented towards backing Gould's ideas, I enjoyed them for the most part. The last chapters in the modern theory section on the importance of constraint were interesting, though they suffered heavily from Gould's style of discourse. I found the last pages of the book on the importance of contingency to be quite beautiful.
   
   The bulk of the book consisted of the material on punctuated equilibrium and Gould's hierarchy of Darwinian individuals. I had issues with the ideas themselves, but these are a distant second to what I felt about Gould's notion of an argument. Evolutionary biology is not a branch of philosophy and textual analysis should not, as Gould claims, "be pursued more often in scientific discussion." They are not done so, according to him, because of the "philistinistic culture of science." Molecular biology and mathematics are vital components of evolutionary biology, as much and perhaps more so than the incomplete fossil record. Gould gave lip service to molecular biology and much less respect to the now venerable and important discipline of population genetics - except of course when the results from these fields backed up his narrative.
   
   Gould's use of lawyerly argument, where verdict is truth, is the reason why he is rightfully disdained for opening the door to creation "science" in the debate on teaching evolution in schools. By stripping away hard science, and replacing it with metaphors, cartoons, and narratives, Gould took a rigorous theory, based firmly on empirical and deductive facts, and replaced it with a secular creation myth that is open to attack. Although this has made him the darling of what he calls the "literati", it is also what made him a bad scientist. The fact that he addressed modern Darwinism tangentially, chose instead to focus on Darwin's and others Victorian era writings, and rejected ideas because they didn't "feel right," didn't improve his standing with me.
   
   Gould's writing when it came to the science under debate was a nightmare. Intentionally or not, he constructed a complex hierarchy of nested, irrelevant tangents; tangents that were fragments within sentences, which were then tangents within paragraphs, which were in turn tangents within sections, ad nauseam. One of the most frustrating aspects of the book was that he refused to give a clear definition of what he meant by "punctuated equilibrium" until pg 1001: "We locate any revisionary status for punctuated equilibrium in its suggestions about the nature of stasis, and particularly its implications for attributing macroevolutionary phenomena to causes operating on the differential success of species treated as Darwinian individuals. Ordinary speciation remains fully adequate to explain the causes and phenomenology of punctuation." Others, such as Richard Dawkins, have done much on addressing this definition of punctuated equilibrium. My comment here is that it took so long to come to it, and up until this point Gould hinted at saltationist underpinnings to punctuated equilibrium, only to later decry and impugn the integrity of his critics for criticizing these alternative definitions.
   
   My main intellectual criticism was of Gould's hierarchy of Darwinian individuals. I thought this was fine as a phenomenological tool to describe macroevolutionary events, but Gould inverted cause and phenomena to claim that species selection is irreducible to gene or organism selection. His reason why? "Nonlinearities." Along with not knowing what the word "fractal" means, which he used quite a bit to mean either "self-similar" or "scales up", Gould thought "nonlinear" meant "hopelessly complex." His style of argument? Keep repeating the word irreducible until the reader breaks down. Gould was snidely dismissive towards the results of population genetics, but only addressed them directly in a (relatively) brief two page discussion where he claimed that they had to be invalid because population genetics models were able to explain both punctuated equilibrium (stasis followed by rapid change) and his cartoon notion of Victorian gradualism. Since Gould himself was clear that both are evident in the fossil record, it is strength, not a weakness, of a modeling system to be able to explain both.
   
   Although the ideas in the book did not all resonate with me, I would have recommended it if it was more clear and much, much more concise, since the ideas in it are an important part of the current discussion on evolutionary theory. But because of the poor writing in the important scientific parts of the book, and Gould's often unprofessional comments towards critics, I don't think this behemoth of a tome is worth your time.



2. Anything and everything by Gould is worth reading. He was aware that he was dying as he finished this book, and it bears the marks of an attempt to cram a lifetime of study and thought into one work. One feels that had he lived longer, the book would have been shorter. The extensive coverage of nearly forgotten figures who represent many examples of one type of opinion is not really necessary to make his points. The reader who is not a specialist will want to do a bit of skimming.
   
   But the length is a minor flaw. The book is an attempt to make all of his conclusions available to both the lay reader and his colleagues. Fundamentalists will read it as a critique of Darwinism; it's not. It represents an extension of Darwin to take into account all that the 20th century revealed about genetics, extinction, cladistics, emergent properties, and astronomical catastrophes. Hopefully it will stand as a monument to empiricism in the face of the new Dark Age that some see coming -- a time when we will forget not only what we knew, bu that we ever knew it.



3. In the weeks I spent poring over this landmark volume I don't recall any explanation of the social insects which have been heavily researched by others in recent years. Societies occur among very few vertebrates and the insects, the world's champs in mimicry including behavior mimicry, a possible clue.



4. This book (Gould's last) is a behemoth. With over 1400 pages, it becomes a physically taxing task to read it. This task is not lessened by the verbiage (and verbosity) that exemplify Gould's style. That being said, this book emcompasses such marvelous theoretical views and includes such a thorough history of evolutionary ideas, that it would be a shame to allow its size and density to prevent you from reading it. Gould spent his entire life pondering the big questions of evolutionary thought, and his ponderings are here revealed with significant insight into the roots of the questions themselves. It is an endeavor to read (as it was a lifetime to write), but the rewards of such an endeavor are innumerable and priceless.



5. An excellent academic book that covers Gould's life work in detail. It will (or should) become a standard reference for postgraduate students of biological evolution. It is not easy reading but is helped by an excellent table of contents; it summarises the main arguement of the book. My only critisism is that it seems to neglect the work of Simon and Salthe, both of whom have made significant contributions to a heirarchical (multi-level) theory of evolution.

5 comments about Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (Helix Books).

1. In the worlds of Complexity and Artificial Intelligence, the name of John Holland is revered, and for good reason. One of the most important contributions to both fields was Holland's invention of genetic algorithms, a class of optimization techniques that applies a survival-of-the-fittest heuristic to a broad range of otherwise intractable problems. He is certifiably a genius, and his words on the subject of complexity should be considered close to the gospel.

   To the benefit of all mankind, this god of complexity has seen fit to lay down his word on the subject in a manner suitable to the masses. He posits seven basic properties of complex adaptive systems (worth reading and memorizing in their own right), then uses the rest of the book to demonstrate that adaptive systems possess these properties and shows us how a computer can capture such adaptive mechanisms. Pure gold and totally accessible.

   This book excels as an exposition of complex adaptive systems for the masses, and as a tutorial for the technically inclined. If you are so technically inclined, follow this book with Holland's "Emergence" and "Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems." Then head on over to Goldberg's book on genetic algorithms and maybe some Koza (a quick Amazon search can find these for you).




2. The ideas presented in this book by John Holland are no doubt interestring. The thought of spontaneous self-organization though hardly new has intrigued humans for centuries. Intuitively it makes sense and appeals to most peoples physical and methaphysical sensibilities. We know and hope that there is more to life than our common sense knowledge of it and the often dull and mechanistic accounts of natural science. Emergence theory therefore has an immediate appeal. Holland manages to keep this "flame" alive for one chapter (the first one) then the wholle enterprise is drowned in techno babble and most "non-hacker" readers are bored and dissappointed. This book is one more instance of a genuinly interesting idea being mercilessly slaughtered by bad writing. It's a true waste. It makes you wish writing courses were made compulsory for natural scientists and techo folks. Unfortunatelly it is hard to reckommend a better book on this subject... Most of the existing books are either written by litterary incompetent but hard core techno devotees or by soft science writers ruminating the self evident and riding the tidal wave of hype. All for the buck and a snapshot in the spotlight. A non-trivial sign of an over-hyped field of inquiry, dangerously bordering the realms of pseudoscience. At least chaos theory had Edward Lorenz as a respectable and astute front figure, managing to keep the delicate balance between scientific integrity and popular appeal. As for emergence theory that post is still vacant. Holland may be an important contributor to the field of emergence theory but he fails the requirements for that post.



3. I think this is an excellent book for someone interested in constructing complex adaptive systems. It clearly lays out the technical guidelines that you would need. And of course, it was written by the man who originated genetic algorithms!

   However, if you are new to the phenomena of complex adaptive systems (CAS) or agent-based models (ABM), this might not be the best intro book for you. This is particularly true if you are wondering what a genetic algorithm is right now. I think you will get the most out of the book if you are already somewhat familiar with CAS and ABM as Holland does not dwell on illustrative examples. (Yes there are examples, but they are very short compared to other authors on this topic.) Because of this, I think this book will be rather dry and technical and non-intuitive for a real newbie. If you have no idea where to begin, try _Growing Artificial Societies_ by Joshua Epstein and Robert Axtell.

   One final comment: for excellent in-depth look at the reiterated Prisoner's Dilemna model with genetic algorithms that Holland briefly discusses, read _The Complexity of Cooperation_ by Robert Axelrod. (Axelrod and Holland mention each other in their books.)




4. It gave me the basic concepts in very clear and rogorous way



5. Hidden Order is a seminar re-arranged into a book. The outcome is not a good read. It is tedious and lacks interesting cases.
   If complex adaptive systems are of interest, take a class and skip this book.

5 comments about Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World.

1. A MUST read for environmentalists. And for business, community and anyone willing to adapt the thinking to their situation. Brian and David have done a superb job in translating resilience theory and its close ties to complex adaptive systems. I have been looking for a book to recommend to my clients and students and this is it. I would also strongly recommend that the 'old guard' sustainability brigade have a look at this. The strategies that sustainability largely pursues are unsustainable. Resilience thinking is a more accurate path for us to head toward something that resembles sustainability. Well done.



2. This book is Latour's actor network theory in another guise, with the physicalization of Kuhn's paradigm shift thrown in for good measure. It is a very interesting book on an emerging way to look at environmental crises (note, not the environmental crisis. We seriously need local knowledge and local experience to manage each individual ecosystem).
   
   My major issues with this book are twofold. One is that it is not well written, though not altogether poorly written, you can simply tell when the science writer came in to jazz things up. Secondly, the authors spend a little too much time trying to convince the reader that resilience thinking is NEW, DIFFERENT, SUBVERSIVE, and the like. We get, on page 29, something that I just cannot stand: a little briefer than brief history of challenge to dogma. Galileo spoke out about the Copernican model (which was still perfect circles, Kepler had it right but Galileo ignored him) and the church shot him down. Darwin dared to say species change and the world exploded! Now, we, the humble new scientists bring you a new challenge to the dogma of ecology today. Give me a break! I would have thought a science writer on the team would have had the experience to leave out this trite nonsense. Just tell me about your idea and spare me the drama! Sorry, but poor history of science is a real pet peeve. :-)
   
   But either way, this is still an important book that should be read by ecology students, politicians, resource managers, and anyone interested in new ideas. The case studies are really informative and clear, and the message is properly urgent



3. This is a gem of an educational book. Mixing case studies with elaborating chapters on key concepts, it's as a good a volume as I have found for teaching undergraduates, graduates, and practitioners (farmers, factory managers, investors) the core ideas needed to restore a sustainable social-ecological system.
   
   Highlights for me:
   
   + Optemization is a false premise, simplifies complex systems we do not understand, with the result that we end up causing long-term damage.
   
   + Resilience thinking is systems thinking. I cannot help but think back to all of the excellent work in the 1970's and 1980's--the authors were simply a quarter century ahead of their time.
   
   + In a nut-shell, resilient system can absorb severe disturbance.
   
   + System resilience is affected by context, connections across scales of time and space, and current system state in relations to threshholds.
   
   + Fresh water, fisheries, and topsoil depletion are major failures.
   
   + Drivers of environmental degradation are poverty, willful excessive consumption, and lack of knowledge (from another book, I recall that changes to the Earth that used to take 10,000 years now take three, one reason we need real-time science).
   
   + Key concepts are threshholds and adaptive cycles. Adaptive cycles have four phases: Rapid Growth; Conservation; Release; and Reorganization.
   
   + Redundancy is NOT a dirty word (just as intelligence--decision support--should not be a dirty word within the United Nations)
   
   + Ecological networks cannot be understood nor nurtured with a tight linking and understanding of the social networks that interact with the ecological networks.
   
   + Subsidies are a form of social denial, as they subsidize unsustainable practices and prevent adaptation and change.
   
   + Lovely--absolutely lovely--chart on page 89 about time-scales of climate and natural disasters like major fires.
   
   + One size does not fit all--solutions for one social-ecological network, e.g. in the USA, will not be the same as for another, e.g. in Norway.
   
   + Diversity is the key to regeneration.
   
   + Governances must be able to see and act upon key intervention points.
   
   + A Resilient world would be characterized by:
   
   1. Diversity
   2. Ecological variables
   3. Modularity
   4. Acknowledgement of slow variables
   5. Tight feedbacks
   6. Social capital
   7. Innovation
   8. Overlap in governance
   9. Ecosystem services
   
   Within this small and very easy to absorb book one finds a great annotated bibliography of recommended readings, a fine reference section, and a very solid index.
   
   Other books that come to mind as complements to this one (limited to ten links by Amazon):
   The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
   Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
   Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
   Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
   Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
   Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
   The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design
   High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
   Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
   The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink



4. Brian Walker, Program Director Resilience Alliance and a scientist with the CSIRO. Canberra Australia, has, with the assistance of science writer David Salt, written the best and most straightforward work on ecological resilience entirely suitable for a wide audience of readers; activists, teachers, scientists from any number of disciplines, interested in gaining a familiarity with a study area that is of critical importance in this present world of catastrophe, forever changing with the calamitous onset of climate change and where stategies of adaptation are quite indequate mechanisms for survival in the white-water world we will have to navigate.
   
   It is not a scientific treatise but a work from which all interested readers will benefit substantially no matter what their background or credentials. This is a twentyfirst century production coauthored with a skilled science writer and a model for any NGO or scientific group who wish to influence and inform policy makers with something they can readiliy understand.. Resilience capability and building such capacity is perhaps the best, but still uncertain, way to buffer social-ecological systems--your everyday environment--from unpredictable, disastrous events and accompanying change. Adaptation and models based on orthodox science are unfortunately inadequate to meet such crises. I recommend this book to any concerned person no matter their level of understanding. They will find something new and enlightening here.



5. This is a fascinating and very timely book. Easy to read and understand with many examples from real life.
   Makes one understand why the serious problems in our world's environment will not go away unless we fix them. And some very practical ways to do that.

5 comments about Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity.

1. I have just finished reading Deep Simplicity and felt the urge to tell anyone who would listen how I felt about the book. Read the other reviewers to find out what the book is about.
   
   There have been very few occasions and very few books that moved me in the way that Deep Simplicity did, for it is a work of art and without doubt a genuinely beautiful piece of literature. What's more, I feel that the beauty inherent in the book is self-similar on many scales, from the lucidly illustrative metaphors, to paragraphs that grab you as they weave delicately expounded threads together, to the overall structure and flow of the book itself. I felt privileged to have read the book.
   
   After I finished I was left with a tremendous sense of appreciation for and recognition with our planet, its biosphere, life, and the Universe at large; even for my fellow man - although our depredations are made strikingly apparent. My final and lasting feeling is one of profound enlightenment; something felt when previously reading Gribbin, but not to this extent.
   
   Thank You John Gribbin, for writing this book; $24.95 in one currency, priceless in another.



2. It is a very informative, unique work by Gribbin about fascinating topics of physics, biology, life and Universe. What is more important it presents brand new experiments and many (maybe too many) mathematical models of network interconnections between simple parts and models of self-organized criticalities in the phase transition on the edge of chaos. This sounds like difficult text, and indeed, especially the third chapter (bifurcations and fractals) is not an easy read. Persistent and math inclined learner should try to grasp the sense of Power Law ("1/f noise"). Then after, satisfaction and pleasure of reading will grow, everything will become clear towards the end of the book. As a long time ago trained chemist, I was surprised discovering Lars Onsager's description of the FOURTH law of thermodynamics and that Alan Turing was not only an "iconic computer man" but worked on oscillating chemical reactions called "chemical clocks". These reactions (quote): "seemed to fly in the face of the second law of thermodynamics"! I was quite enlightened how phase transition can be explained as phenomena taking place on the edge of chaos. Last chapter is mostly devoted to James Lovelock and "Gaia Theory" presenting Earth as a self-organizing, entropy reducing system (check his last book "Revenge of Gaia"). Maverick physicist Lee Smolin has formulated the similar hypothesis about Milky Way. The field of chaos and complexity states that simple rules must underline many apparently noisy, complicated aspects of nature - and this is what John Gribbin writes about. Whether chaoplexologists will find any profound new scientific laws only time can tell. For now enjoy and reduce your entropy by absorbing information emanating from this book.



3. I wish this book was available when I went to college. We studied a lot of the things John Gribbin talks about. But it was presented as something very abstract, "pure" advanced math without any connection to the real world around. As such it made for a VERY boring subject and torturous four years.
   
   I am truly amazed at how seemingly easy John Gribbin can take the same subject and explain it so eloquently and in very practical terms! In my view this is a perfect example of a great book (see Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book", a must for anyone who wants to read analytically) - it can teach most people something new and make your brain work at it.
   
   Finally, I would not have stumbled upon this book if it wasn't for Charlie Munger (of Berkshire Hathaway fame) and his annual book recommendations at BRK's annual meeting. He is a wise man and this was a proof that it's worth listening to anything he says.



4. I had just finished reading James Gleick's Chaos (yes, finally got around to it) and found it well written and deserving of the praise it has received. It is an in depth look at the modern founding of chaos theory and left me wondering about the quickly evolving advances in more recent times. Deep Simplicity was the right choice for me to extend that search. I enjoyed the longer look back at non-linear systems investigations where the mathematics was simply too tedious to carry out by hand. The many iterations necessary to see patterns in results was not practical until the advent of the computer, all 4k of Lorenz' processing power! Gribbon does a commendable of summarizing Gleick's work and moving on to the present. He also expands the effort into a cosmic overview at the end which illustrates nicely the interaction of life and the galactic processes that sustain it. Ultimately, then, if all the parts are necessary, isn't it in some larger sense all alive? Maybe necessary but not sufficient? Gribbon states that the boarder between living and nonliving systems becomes blurred as a result. Nice. My only reservation is that had I not read Chaos first, I think I'd have had less success with Deep Simplicity on its own. As for chaos theory, it is an exciting new descriptive tool, but I'm waiting to see concrete application. Gribbon is a good writer, and I'm looking forward to reading more work by him in the future.



5. without doubt, this nears limits of ability of man to integrate and articulate possible (?probable) sequence of events from origen of universe to origen of life, as it may be recognized by man. A scientific background and prior understanding of physics/biochemistry/universal law and concept of power laws makes reading "easier on the brain." A second or third reading of this wonderful book is truly worthwhile. For those "spiritual seekers" the author provides a potential platform for the Creators' activities.

5 comments about The Essence of Chaos (The Jessie and John Danz Lecture Series).

1. Edward Lorenz takes a complicated topic and makes it accessible for all people, regardless of prior knowledge of chaos theory. He provides interesting and easy to follow examples of chaos, fractals and complexity. The illustrations are helpful and he includes a glossary of terms to aid the beginning chaos enthusiasts to quickly become familiar with the terminology. Mr. Lorenz gives a brief history of chaos and explains how it is used in the study of mathematics, meteorology, economics, music, and other fields. The book is very interesting and is highly recommended for those who would like to acquaint themselves with the exciting world of chaos.



2. Lorenz has done it again. This is a terrific inside look at chaos by the man who made Gleick's book possible. And it had a few interesting new ideas too--who would have thought there was a different way to present fourth-order Runge-Kutta? Who would have thought Runge-Kutta could convert a phase-space circle to a nice-looking fractal attractor? A good book for the air plane.



3. My first intro to chaos was Gleick's book *Chaos: Making a New Science* which focused on the history of the discovery of chaos. Although this was fascinating - and a good read for those just learning about dynamical systems, strange attractors, and the like - Lorenz's *Essence of Chaos* was much more satisfying. Lorenz analyzes specific chaotic functions, gives you the math (equations are in the appendix) and generally accomplishes what the title suggests - that is, exploring the essence of chaos. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this deeply fascinating subject.



4. Lorenz did a great job when he wrote this book!
   The very first time when I heard of chaos theory was year ago while watching some old documentary about Nostadamus. In film was mentioned chaos theory and said that acceptance of it by many people could change whole look to life and so on. Movie left to me questions - what is that theory, what it's standing for.
   Finaly my interest lead me to this book and it clearly showed me what kind of staff is that chaos theory! That was and is really intriguing!
   Book is well written. There was of course some places that wasn't easy to understand. I myself have studied high math,encountered differential equations but anyway had some difficulties. That's why not 5 stars to book - it's really not for absolutely everyone although almost close to it. I couldn't stop it reading, I was done in two days.
   This book encouraged me for further reading.



5. Having read several books about Chaos Theory, and having been promised a user-friendly and yet academic book on the subject, this book fell a little short. Certainly academic, not so easy for someone who does not have a solid background in the sciences and mathematics fields. The various sections cover much of the recent research, and if you can get past the equations, you get a more complete sense of the progression in the subject.

5 comments about General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications.

1. Bertalanffy is one of the best educated men and deepest thinkers ever. General Systems Theory is a monument to his greatness. Keep a dictionary handy, and brush up on your Latin. This is the top of the intellectual mountain, where men no longer tread.



2. Although he wrote a lot about the general theory of systems,
   I think it is his approach to the problems of how living systems
   interact with their environment in a catabolic manner
   that makes him really important.
   He has had impact from fields like biology to
   fluid dynamics.
   He set a standard for how we think about history
   and with Lewis F. Richardson The Collected Papers of Lewis Fry Richardson (Collected Papers of Lewis Fry Richardson, Vol 2)and Isaac AsimovThe Foundation Trilogy
   made a science possible.



3. This book is good to someone who wants to think about systems. However, is not the book aim to give details about the system definition. For example, is hard to see definitions of open system, feedback, components, inputs, outputs. The reason for that is the historical moment of the book.
   
   It is a good book. Anyone who thinks about system should own this book.



4. The best view, writed on general system theory, selected and edited to show the evolution of systems theory and to present its applications to problem solving. Recommended on such widely diverse disciplines as biology, economics, psychology, and demography.



5. I've looked high and low for a text summarizing systems theory and I write this review in near shock having just finished this book. I say "shock" because I just can't believe how remarkably undated this book is after nearly 40 years (first edition 1969). I've read books by Checkland, Lazlo, Weinberg and many others but nothing summarizes the systems world view better than this classic. You've gotta love a scientist/philosopher who quotes Aldous Huxley liberally. I'd give it six stars if I could.