From Library Journal

Gell-Mann, a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and a pioneer in the science of complexity, here examines that important concept, focusing on complex adaptive systems. Such systems are capable of learning and are able to adapt or evolve successfully. The intricate processes used by a child to learn a language, for example, constitute a complex adaptive system, as do the processes used by bacteria to develop resistance to drugs. These systems provide a context or framework for a stimulating discussion of quantum mechanics and the unified theory. Gell-Mann also explores topics such as natural selection, species diversity, and the evolution of human culture in relation to complex adaptive systems. While the topics are technical in nature, Gell-Mann's presentation is clear and will be readily understood by scholars and informed lay readers. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.

Donald G. Frank, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass.

Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Table of Contents

Part One: The Simple & the Complex

PREFACE

1: Prologue: An Encounter in the Jungle

2: Early Light

3: Information & Crude Complexity

4: RANDomness

5: A Child Learning a Language

6: Bacteria Developing Drug Resistance

7: The Scientific Enterprise

8: The Power of Theory

9: What Is Fundamental?

Part Two: The Quantum Universe

10: Simplicity & Randomness in the Quantum Universe

11: A Contemporary View of Quantum Mechanics: Quantum Mechanics & the Classical Approximation

12: Quantum Mechanics & Flapdoodle

13: Quarks & All That: The Standard Model

14: Superstring Theory: Unification at Last?

15: Time’s Arrows: Forward & Backward Time

Part Three: Selection & Fitness

16: Selection at Work in Biological Evolution & Elsewhere

17: From Learning to Creative Thinking

18: Superstition & Skepticism

19: Adaptive & Maladaptive Schemata

20: Machines that Learn or Simulate Learning

Part Four: Diversity & Sustainability

21: Diversities under Threat

22: Transitions to a More Sustainable World

23: Afterword

Review

“An exhilarating voyage of learning. Not a sparrow takes wing, not an idea rises, not a quark quivers that does not inspire Murray Gell-Mann. He has made his life an adventuresome quest along the frontiers of knowledge.” ―Bill Moyers

“A stimulating, provocative, and uncommon cut across compartments of human knowledge that are usually hermetically sealed. It is always a pleasure to see a first-class mind grappling with the greatest mysteries, and at the same time resisting mysticism.” ―Carl Sagan

“A grand tour of one of the most powerful and richly structured adaptive systems of our time: the mind of Murray Gell-Mann. The tour is very much worth taking.” ―Science

“A most important book.” ―The Washington Post

“A book about how the wonderful diversity of the universe can arise out of a set of fairly simple basic laws. It is written by an expert in both the fundamental laws and the complex structures they can produce.” ―Stephen W. Hawking

About the Author

Murray Gell-Mann, the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor Emeritus of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics. In 1984, he helped establish the Santa Fe Institute, where he now works. A longtime director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Professor Gell-Man served as chairman of its Committee on World Environment and Resources.