The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge [Hardcover]

William Poundstone (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (November 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688039758
• ISBN-13: 978-0688039752
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,095,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Poundstone is the author of two previous Hill and Wang books: Fortune's Formula and Gaming the Vote.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read, October 4, 2001

By 

H. Gibbons "mystery maestro" (North Falmouth, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge (Paperback)

I've given many copies of this book to my students--the ones who have particular promise, the ones who ask questions about things. Like the question that Poundstone asks in the book: where did all this complex stuff come from. Of all the complexity literature--Arthur, Kaufman, et al--I've found this the most meaningful. And the use of the Game of Life to illustrate the emergence of the complex is beautifully done.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of, July 4, 2000

By 

Michael A Bair (Norfolk, Va United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge (Hardcover)

A wonderful journey through key concepts in information theory using Conway's "Life" program as a vehicle. This book is a celebration of what is possible when natural law is applied to a random system, and demonstrates the necessity of limits on systems. Highly recommended for anyone interested in entropy, extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, or cellular automata. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Leo Szilard, Maxwell's Demon and the Limits of Observation, January 9, 2003

By 

Chaim (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge (Paperback)

I read most of this book (library copy) many years ago and one set of concepts had a great impact: The clear explanation of the deep epistemologiacal implications of Leo Szilard's 1929 groundbreaking paper analyzing Maxwell's Demon and the foundations of observational information. I can't recall all the details but the conclusions were clear and startling. It goes much deeper than Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in outlining the fundamental limits of observation and thus empirical/scientific knowledge. Szilard's results would even apply in a "classical" universe.
I have yet to see this fully explicated in philosophy departments or other "popular" texts, etc.
Recommended as a very good, basic introduction to information and communication theory. Also, try anything by Greg Chaitin for purely mathematical limits to information and [analytic?] knowledge.