The Info Mesa: Science, Business, and New Age Alchemy on the Santa Fe Plateau [Hardcover]

Edward Regis (Author), Ed Regis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003

The explosive rise and shining future of Santa Fe's informatics industry, where scientists are converting abstract theory into real profit.

How did a small southwest town transform itself into a hotbed of research science, advanced technology, and money? Tracking key figures in Santa Fe's emerging industries, Ed Regis explains how entrepreneurial scientists are using complexity theory and powerful, experimental computer programs to create practical—and profitable—applications. Their efforts to convert vast, diverse data, whether chemical or biological or computational, into useful information is leading to new drugs and medical therapies, ultimately revolutionizing our understanding of effective business strategies. With cutting-edge technology, companies are able to test chemicals, drugs, and interactions virtually before committing huge laboratory investments.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Regis (Who Got Einstein's Office?) here explores the desert community of scientist-cum-entrepreneurs besotted with "intellectual excitement and chaos and seriousness and joy." Unlike Silicon Valley, Santa Fe's Info Mesa consists largely of academics channeling pure scientific ideas to business ends. Computer simulations and ever-increasing amounts of processing power help them tackle questions on an unprecedented scale. Take, for example, Stu Kauffman's BiosGroup, which used "fitness landscapes" to contemplate thousands of potential variations on an airline baggage-handling system in just a few days. The book's core is the immensely important transfer from "wet" (i.e. laboratory) chemistry to "virtual" (i.e. computerized) chemistry, which would yield enormous benefits to the pharmaceutical industry. Regis traces a few seemingly unrelated stories that eventually knit together, and seems to not be able to make up his mind on whether the book is primarily about the ideas or the personalities. But this is not a huge drawback, since his brisk account of important recent movements in science and business is highly entertaining and informative.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

A decade after Silicon Valley became known for its hard drives and mother boards, a different breed of innovators has turned the Santa Fe Plateau into a hotbed of creativity by using computer technology to harness new scientific theories. Science writer Regis tells the story of how these often eccentric innovators--partial to flying-saucer music and New Age mysticism--are developing complexity-theory programs to solve daunting scientific and business problems. One of Santa Fe's cutting-edge software groups has devised a program that in mere hours sifts through mountains of chemical data to identify potential medicines. Another is modeling fluid systems--from sewage in treatment plants to jet wings in turbulence--for perplexed engineers. In chronicling the remarkably diverse enterprises of Santa Fe's scientist-entrepreneurs, Regis unfolds two divergent themes: first, the astonishing success of daring theorists in reducing the entire natural world to computer information; second, the even more astonishing failure of any theory whatever in circumscribing these theorists' own maverick personalities. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393021238
• ISBN-13: 978-0393021233
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,490,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Written and Researched Complexity and Santa Fe Hype, July 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Info Mesa: Science, Business, and New Age Alchemy on the Santa Fe Plateau (Hardcover)

This is a well researched, well written, interesting book about scientists in Santa Fe developing entrepreneurial start-ups based on complexity science. The science and business combination is fun and wide ranging. It belongs to a genre of books about the Santa Fe Institute, of which Michael Waldrop's Complexity is one of the earliest and best. Many of the characters are the same in both books. My criticism of the Info Mesa is that much of it reads like publicity hype. It overstates the scientific accomplishments of the Santa Fe Institute and the importance of complexity research. It overstates the health of the tech business climate in Santa Fe. It romanticizes the people who work at SFI. It romanticizes the town in which they work. The descriptions of Santa Fe are so over the top as to be laughable to those of us who live here. Not even our tourist brochures hype Santa Fe so well. So, in conclusion, the Info Mesa's story isn't really so. All of you should just stay home, and leave Santa Fe to those of us who got here before you. ;-)

0 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than Mambo Chicken!, May 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Info Mesa: Science, Business, and New Age Alchemy on the Santa Fe Plateau (Hardcover)

Ed Regis is an exceptional writer.

This book is actually based on research, or least we anticipate a journalist's report of details. If you read his earlier book Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition you might choke on a few missing details. Ever hear of a transhuman? Regis applied this title grabbing "transhuman" to a few people who didn't know what the word was, let alone meant.

Regis' use of "transhuman" was wide of the mark. His writing was marginalized when he neglected to point out the transhuman futurists in Los Angeles. Even one who coined the term, let along with a hundred others. At least they called themselves transhumans, unlike the Silicon Valley geeks. But then Wired magazine appealed to Silicon Valley and LA was Hollywierd. Sounds like Regis was noshing his editors at Wired.

At least Regis is moving in an interesting direction with alchemy, can't factualize that.

Roy Whitman