What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such
precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of neurons produce
something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? In this
remarkably clear and companionable book, leading complex systems
scientist Melanie Mitchell provides an intimate tour of the sciences of
complexity, a broad set of efforts that seek to explain how large-scale
complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can emerge from simple
interactions among myriad individuals. Based on her work at the Santa Fe
Institute and drawing on its interdisciplinary strategies, Mitchell
brings clarity to the workings of complexity across a broad range of
biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out the general
principles or laws that apply to all of them. Richly illustrated,
Complexity: A Guided Tour--winner of the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Book
Award in Science--offers a wide-ranging overview of the ideas underlying
complex systems science, the
current research at the forefront of this field, and the prospects for
its contribution to solving some of the most important scientific
questions of our time.