Thinking In Complexity

Thinking in Complexity

The second edition of "Thinking in Complexity", like the first edition, was also sold out in less than one year. Meanwhile, Japanese and Chinese translations of the sec ond editon have been published. Once more I have taken the opportunity provided by a new edition to revise and extend the text. A new Sect. 2. 5 "Complex Systems and the Self Construction of Materials" is included, in order to ana lyze the role of complex systems in the dramatic success of supramolecular chemistry, nanotechnology, and the technology of smart ("intelligent") materials. These top ics lie at the boundary between materials science and life science. In recent years, life science and computer science have been growing together in a common field of research called "artificial life". A further new Sect. 5. 5 "From Artificial Intelligence to Artificial Life" has been added, in which the role of complex systems in the field of arti ficiallife is discussed. I also use the opportunity of the new edition to make some remarks about the relationship between the Santa Fe approach to complex systems and the methods of synergetics and order parameters which are key concepts in this book. Research into complex systems continues world wide. I have to thank the readers who have written friendly and inspiring letters from all over the world. Some months ago, a German Society of Complex Sys tems and Nonlinear Dynamics was founded.

Thinking in Complexity

The theory of nonlinear, complex systems has become by now a proven problem-solving approach in the natural sciences. And it is now also recognized that many if not most of our social, ecological, economical and political problems are essentially of a global, complex and nonlinear nature. And it is now further accepted than any holistic perspective of the human mind and brain can hardly be achieved by any other approach. In this wide-ranging, scholarly but very concise treatment, physicist, computer scientist and philosopher Klaus Mainzer discusses, in essentially nontechnical language, the common framework behind these ideas and challenges. Emphasis is given to the evolution of new structures in natural and cultural systems and we are lead to see clearly how the new integrative approach can give insights not available from traditional reductionistic methods. The fifth edition enlarges and revises almost all sections and supplements an entirely new chapter on the complexity of economic systems. From the reviews of the fourth edition: "... this highly recommended book is a wonderful resource for intuitive basic ideas in the need of rigorous formulation." (Albert A. Mullin, Zentralblatt MATH)

Thinking in Complexity ...