Customer Reviews

Computer Simulations with Mathematica (R): Explorations in Complex Physical and Biological Systems

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How does the algorithmic approach work diffently from the equational approach? Gaylord/Wellin's neat book demostrates that. In cases of the presence of technical difficulties and the absence of the representability in terms of equations, the algorithmic approach is gainning more and more significance and enjoys a promising future. The book covers both the probabilistic systems and cellular automata. Wide-reaching 14 physical and biological systems are presented to suit various readers' tastes. [It would be a plus if in 2nd edition, the economic systems are EXPLICITLY included, although the authors did put some, say, the random walk model, in the book.] Each chapter is short [thus, time-saving for self-study], nonsense-free,systematic, and self-contained. It starts from step-by-step code fragments, to the integration of parts into a elegant program. Then, it was wrapped up with the numerical analysis and visualization both to give a feel of the performance of the model and to blow in a strand of breeze in our sometimes dry computer programming work. [Hopefully in next edition the sample solutions to the end-of-chapter computer projects will be added.] Appendix A and B on MATHEMATICA programming and random number generators concentrate on a few essential points [rather than on everything] and the authors delivered them effectively. In a nutshell, if you're interested in simulation and if you'd like to use MATHEMATICA, I recommend this superb book by Gaylord/Wellin.

This is the book to buy if you want to build and run the Cellular Automata pioneered by Stephen Wolfram (inventor of "Mathematica" the absolute best math software and more). Like most of us who have been waiting for more than a decade for Wolfram to finish his opus magnum "A New Kind of Science" (available for pre-ordering here on Amazon.com), one can get a little tired of waiting and want to run some of the sterling images sneak pre-viewed on his WEB site to gain some of the same insights he has been gathering since first discovering this phenomenon in the early '80's. I first bought Gaylord's later book; "Modeling Nature",(also available here on Amazon.com)thinking that would be the definitive guide to actually programming and running the simulations on "Mathematica." It's a great book and has many good examples of other kinds of modeling software but not the kind we are interested in, his "ElementaryRules" for these [very] particular 1-Dimensional Cellular Automata. Buy it, program them, run them, view them, and forever have the way you view the world change!