Customer Reviews

Would-Be Worlds: How Simulation is Changing the Frontiers of Science

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Casti is a lucid and entertaining writer and has sufficient depth in his own subject and breadth in other disciplines as to be well placed to write a book on modelling and simulation. This is an excellent introduction to some of the mathematical, logical, and philosophical problems of and raised by the increasing use of simulation to investigate 'real-world' problems. It assumes no background beyond a general interest in science.
If this book has weaknesses they tend to be of the variety that afflicts much modern writing in popular science. Editors rather than authors, perhaps? A sizeable portion of the plates and diagrams add nothing to the book ("gee, John, this is a popular science book - we gotta have some pictures") plus a preference for rushing to mine the next source of the 'gee-whiz' factor rather than grappling with consequences.
The strapline on the cover is 'how simulation is changing the frontiers of science' and I'm not at all sure that this question is answered. The last chapter makes an unconvincing attempt to be a summary, but is in fact the least interesting of the five trailing off rather weakly into a 'what we really need is a theory of complex systems' position.
But, the acid test - did I learn anything from this book? Most definitely, yes. - Ashley Oliver

This is one of those books that address important questions. But unfortunately it is not always possible to answer these important questions. This book is about "would-be-worlds", on computer simulations of real life phenomena. The question is how can one explain real world facts with such simulations that look extremely distant from the real world. Good question, but it is very hard to answer. Casti does not answer this question, he has attempts, for example the section "Models for All Occasions" is a good step, but he can not deliver the good. Why? Maybe because he spends a lot of space introducing and discussing various examples of simulations. Maybe because he did not want to play the "philosopher of science" in this book. I do not know, but most probably he thinks that these computational models, and simulations are useful anyway. So he does not tell us how we can trust these models, but he tries to amaze us with these models. But is that bad? No!

Although practical and philosophical questions about computer simulations are very important there are still few people thinking about these issues. Casti's book directs attention to these issues and questions. Moreover, this is a book for the layman! Thus, it is good to introduce different sorts of would-be-worlds. Casti is excellent in introducing things!

Briefly, although Casti does not tell how it is possible to make inferences about the real world from such artificial worlds, this is a good book to start thinking about the philosophy and methodology of explaining with computer simulations.

As someone who enjoys popular science books, dabbles in complexity theory, and works in modeling and simulation, I was really looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it is not well structured and the author seems to be unable to decide whether he's writing about complexity or M&S. Yes, they are intertwined, but there are several books that treat the subject of complexity very well. What I was looking forward to here was a behind the scenes look at the experimental aparatus of complexity theory: Modeling and Simulation. Whether its due to lack of understanding of the art of M&S or an excessive love affair with complexity, the book comes off half-heartedly discussing both. If you want to learn about complexity, read something by John Holland. If you want to learn about M&S, read anything but this.