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The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation Reprint Edition

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 49 ratings

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Gary William Flake develops in depth the simple idea that recurrent rules can produce rich and complicated behaviors.

In this book Gary William Flake develops in depth the simple idea that recurrent rules can produce rich and complicated behaviors. Distinguishing "agents" (e.g., molecules, cells, animals, and species) from their interactions (e.g., chemical reactions, immune system responses, sexual reproduction, and evolution), Flake argues that it is the computational properties of interactions that account for much of what we think of as "beautiful" and "interesting." From this basic thesis, Flake explores what he considers to be today's four most interesting computational topics: fractals, chaos, complex systems, and adaptation.

Each of the book's parts can be read independently, enabling even the casual reader to understand and work with the basic equations and programs. Yet the parts are bound together by the theme of the computer as a laboratory and a metaphor for understanding the universe. The inspired reader will experiment further with the ideas presented to create fractal landscapes, chaotic systems, artificial life forms, genetic algorithms, and artificial neural networks.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This delightful book illustrates beautifully the paradigm shift in physics from writing equations and solving them to computer modeling and experimentation."--Greg Chaitin, author of "The Limits of Mathematics"

& quot; This delightful book illustrates beautifully the paradigm shift in physics from writing equations and solving them to computer modeling and experimentation.& quot; -- Greg Chaitin, author of The Limits of Mathematics

" This delightful book illustrates beautifully the paradigm shift in physics from writing equations and solving them to computer modeling and experimentation." -- Greg Chaitin, author of "The Limits of Mathematics"

-- Greg Chaitin, author of "The Limits of Mathematics"

About the Author

Gary William Flake is a research scientist in the Adaptive Information and Signal Processing Department of Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton, New Jersey.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ MIT Press; Reprint edition (January 31, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 514 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262561271
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262561273
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 1.29 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 49 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
49 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book provides a thorough coverage of complex topics and important ideas. They describe it as an inspiring read with clear writing that is accessible to both programmers and general readers. The book offers free software downloads and source code.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

8 customers mention "Depth"8 positive0 negative

Customers find the book provides a good overview of complex topics and important ideas. They appreciate the free software downloads that illustrate many mind-expanding concepts. The book covers a wide range of topics and is a great way to explore new ones.

"...One other nice feature of this book is, you can really play with almost all concepts using a number of computer programs...." Read more

"...maintains a website with free software downloads that illustrate the many mind expanding (w/o drugs! (-:) concepts discussed...." Read more

"...The books its self is great. It assumes very little of readers initial knowledge and does a great job of addressing some complex topics...." Read more

"...One good point however - the book does explain some theoretical issues quite nicely." Read more

7 customers mention "Readability"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and inspiring. They appreciate the author's clear writing style and the material being presented in sufficient detail. The visionary quality is never lost, while maintaining a good balance between the details and overall vision.

"...The author's enthusiasm is infectious, his writing style very clear, and his material well cited...." Read more

"This is a great book but you must know that it does require some prior math experience...." Read more

"...It doesn't skimp on details, but retains a visionary quality that never looses sight of the larger landscape." Read more

"This is a fantastic book, full of rich thinking that could change the way you see the world...." Read more

5 customers mention "Writing style"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's writing style clear and understandable. They say it's accessible to both general readers and programmers, with minimal math.

"...All topics are written in surprisingly clear and very understandable manner. With as little Math as possible...." Read more

"...The author's enthusiasm is infectious, his writing style very clear, and his material well cited...." Read more

"This book is both accessible to the general reader and one that can send programmers and mathematicians down to joyfully explore technical rabbit..." Read more

"A beutiful book on complex systems. Clearly written with simulation code made freely available." Read more

3 customers mention "Download rate"3 positive0 negative

Customers like the download rate. They mention that all the programs are downloadable with source code under GNU license from the book's website.

"...All the programs are downloadable (with source code, under GNU license) from the book's homepage...." Read more

"...He also maintains a website with free software downloads that illustrate the many mind expanding (w/o drugs! (-:) concepts discussed...." Read more

"...Well written, a nice collection of material, and downloadable source code. I found it to be a very inspiring book." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2001
    I recently became interested a lot in Nature. Especially, being someone in the field of Computer Science, the computational aspect. And this book is by far one of my favourite among all the "How Nature Works" kind of books I've read.
    This Computational Beauty of Nature (CBofN) covered a lot of topics. Ranged from brief introduction to Computation Theory, Fractals, Chaos, Complexity, Adaptation. (See the Table of Content for more details).
    All topics are written in surprisingly clear and very understandable manner. With as little Math as possible. (From my opinion, these topics cannot be completely understood without Mathematics -- The Language of Nature). Therefore, it is also accessible to layperson.
    This book does not, however, go so deep into each subject. (You won't expect it to do that with its less-than 500 pages, don't you? :-) Instead, it does give nice backgrounds, fundamental knowledge, and important ideas for each. So, if you are interesting in any of the subjects presented here, you can go on to the more specialized books on your own.
    One of the nicest feature of this book, which can hardly be found in other text, is that the it does show how things work together, where and why. For example, natural phenomena like adaptation, evolution, computation, and some other things else related to each other. How can one view this from that perspective, and vice versa. etc.
    One other nice feature of this book is, you can really play with almost all concepts using a number of computer programs. All the programs are downloadable (with source code, under GNU license) from the book's homepage. So, you can reproduce almost all the figures from the book.
    However, for one thing, the homepage address given in the book, in the edition/printing I have is incorrect. Maybe MIT Press had changed the structure of their website or something...
    ...you can still search for it using your favourite web-search engine.
    About the website, all the good things are there as well, including errata. (Of course, Perfect things are very rare in Nature... So, books with some errors are ok. The thing that matter is the authors know it/admit it and tell the readers or not).
    Conclusion: If you want to understand "How Nature Works" from the computational point of view. If you interested in Chaos theory, Fractals and Complexity. Then, make no mistake, you can't go wrong with this one. (And, get the hardcover edition, because you will read it, read it, read it again, and keep refering to it. So the paperback edition probably can't endure that :-)
    I want to give it more stars if I only could. This book will always get the highest rating possible from me wherever and whenever I review it.
    Nature herself is so beautiful. So, it's time to get to know her, to learn about her and to understand her! And this book just did it, in such a way that can hardly be better!
    25 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2009
    IMHO this book should be part of every US high school or undergradate Science/Math curriculum, and would be worth twice the price. The author's enthusiasm is infectious, his writing style very clear, and his material well cited. He also maintains a website with free software downloads that illustrate the many mind expanding (w/o drugs! (-:) concepts discussed. Although thanks to magazines like Wired (minus its aggressive leftist politics and more aggressive BB censoring)the sciences have become "cooler." Nevertheless, there is still A LOT of work to do, and damage to be undone, from academically inferior and unenthusiastic so called math/science "teachers" in US schools. I don't usually rate books five stars, but I am rating this one a big FIVE stars.
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2012
    This is a great book but you must know that it does require some prior math experience. You cannot just jump right in without at least a basic background
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2011
    I made a mistake in selecting my shipping address and the item was sent out to the wrong address. Another vendor I went through on Amazon refused to work with me under this scenario, refunded the cost of the item (minus shipping) and said I had to buy it all over again.

    This was not the case here. The vendor was responsive, and reshipped the product free of charge.

    When the book arrived it was in great condition.

    The books its self is great. It assumes very little of readers initial knowledge and does a great job of addressing some complex topics. It is quite in depth and gives you what you need to implement some exciting algorithms. I highly recommend to anyone interested in fractals or complexity theory.
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2014
    Well, I was a little disappointed by this one. I was hoping for more algorithms, maybe a little code snippets. You know what, forget about that, even a tiny hint of how to do things myself would have been great. But no, this book gives you examples in a software I don't know, with no way to run them yourself. You don't get to see code, you don't get to see algorithms, just screenshots that say "See? This is a fractal!". Wow. I bought this book to know how tho draw the fractal.....
    One good point however - the book does explain some theoretical issues quite nicely.
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2020
    This book is both accessible to the general reader and one that can send programmers and mathematicians down to joyfully explore technical rabbit holes. It doesn't skimp on details, but retains a visionary quality that never looses sight of the larger landscape.
    2 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2019
    This is a fantastic book, full of rich thinking that could change the way you see the world. But, don't kid yourself, you some maths to get the most from it.
    2 people found this helpful
    Report

Top reviews from other countries

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  • Denis Beurive
    5.0 out of 5 stars Très bon livre
    Reviewed in France on February 15, 2022
    Ce livre est vraiment excellent : très pédagogique, très utile pour comprendre. Je le recommande.
  • Gerardo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente conexión de temas, muy bien organizado
    Reviewed in Spain on April 28, 2013
    Gary William Flake hace un excelente trabajo conectando ideas, que van desde aspectos fundamentales de la computación hasta los sistemas complejos en biología, pasando por los fractales y el caos. Si bien hay varios textos que tratan estos temas, éste consigue transmitir una unidad conceptual, un hilo conductor, que es, a mi juicio, el valor más importante del libro. Algunos temas se tratan de manera superficial, lo cual es inevitable dada la gran variedad de áreas que cubre. El autor proporciona bibliografía y comentarios para profundizar en cada uno de ellos.
  • Goebel Junghanns James
    5.0 out of 5 stars My all-time favorite.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 27, 2011
    This is a astonishing book that introduces the reader to the wonder that lies within the world that surrounds us. It helps us view the whole gamut of physical and biological processes through the perspective of computation. Though eminently readable, the book presents all the information, equations, and code that one needs to actually think articulately about the concepts exposed and even "get stuck in". It's really one of a kind.
  • Luís Araújo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good print
    Reviewed in Spain on December 31, 2021
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    Luís Araújo
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Good print

    Reviewed in Spain on December 31, 2021

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  • elecjc
    5.0 out of 5 stars Très bon état
    Reviewed in France on February 28, 2020
    Très satisfait