Patterns in the Sand
Computers, Complexity, and Everyday Life
Seiten
1998
Perseus Books (Verlag)
978-0-7382-0015-6 (ISBN)
Perseus Books (Verlag)
978-0-7382-0015-6 (ISBN)
- Titel ist leider vergriffen;
keine Neuauflage - Artikel merken
The science of complexity is concerned with treating vastly complicated systems like the biosphere as holistic systems. This text discusses this scientific paradigm that treats life as a natural computation, and shows how this approach translates into ways of dealing with complexity in real life.
A new vision of the most revolutionary scientific breakthrough of the twentieth century, and beyond.. In this fresh look at the science of complexity, a biologist and a computer scientist discuss this profound new field of knowledge, using examples from starfish to traveling salesmen, from car crashes to the workings of the brain. }Until recently, science has made progress by breaking large systems down into smaller and simpler parts, studying and explaining how these parts operate, and putting them back together again. Although this reductionist approach works amazingly well when we study the atom or the function of a single gene, it hits a brick wall when it comes to vastly complex systems like the brain, or the weather, or the ecosphere. Such systems are just too complicated to yield their secrets to the reductionist approach.The new science of complexity, one of the twentieth centuries greatest contributions to our comprehension of nature, is concerned with treating vastly complicated systems, like the biosphere or the Internet, as holistic systems.
Patterns in the Sand discusses this new scientific paradigm that treats life as a natural computation, and shows how this approach translates into ways of dealing with complexity in real life. It shows, for example, how key ideas, such as chaos, criticality, and emergent phenomena, helps us to understand how ants build their nests, how the brain works, why we enact simple routines like getting up in the morning and going to work, and why accidents happen.Using such everyday phenomena as illustrations, Bossomaier and Green take us from the most basic function of the simple Turing computer through the vast interrelationships of the earths biota, right up to the search for life on other planets, while providing a new understanding of the complicated, complex, world around us. }
A new vision of the most revolutionary scientific breakthrough of the twentieth century, and beyond.. In this fresh look at the science of complexity, a biologist and a computer scientist discuss this profound new field of knowledge, using examples from starfish to traveling salesmen, from car crashes to the workings of the brain. }Until recently, science has made progress by breaking large systems down into smaller and simpler parts, studying and explaining how these parts operate, and putting them back together again. Although this reductionist approach works amazingly well when we study the atom or the function of a single gene, it hits a brick wall when it comes to vastly complex systems like the brain, or the weather, or the ecosphere. Such systems are just too complicated to yield their secrets to the reductionist approach.The new science of complexity, one of the twentieth centuries greatest contributions to our comprehension of nature, is concerned with treating vastly complicated systems, like the biosphere or the Internet, as holistic systems.
Patterns in the Sand discusses this new scientific paradigm that treats life as a natural computation, and shows how this approach translates into ways of dealing with complexity in real life. It shows, for example, how key ideas, such as chaos, criticality, and emergent phenomena, helps us to understand how ants build their nests, how the brain works, why we enact simple routines like getting up in the morning and going to work, and why accidents happen.Using such everyday phenomena as illustrations, Bossomaier and Green take us from the most basic function of the simple Turing computer through the vast interrelationships of the earths biota, right up to the search for life on other planets, while providing a new understanding of the complicated, complex, world around us. }
Coping with Complexity; Computation; Military and Democratic Routes to Complexity; The Imbalance of Nature; The ABC of Nature; On the Importance of Being Well Connected; Patterns in the Sand; Implications for Computers; The Internet: Superhighway or Goat Track?; Complexity and Life.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 24.10.1998 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Frontiers in science |
| Verlagsort | Boulder |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 137 x 210 mm |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik |
| Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Allgemeines / Lexika | |
| Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Angewandte Mathematik | |
| Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Mathematische Spiele und Unterhaltung | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-7382-0015-8 / 0738200158 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-7382-0015-6 / 9780738200156 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
Buch | Hardcover (2023)
Hanser, Carl (Verlag)
CHF 41,95
