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The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World (Penguin Science) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Jack S. Cohen (Author) "A yeshiva boy-a young man studying in a rabbinical college-took instruction from three rabbis..." (more)
Key Phrases: mental funnels, brain puns, reductionist story, Theory of Everything, Sherlock Holmes, Big Bang (more...)

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One step onto this ontological escalator with British biologist Cohen and British mathematician Stewart ( Does God Play Dice? ) and readers will zoom right to the metaphysical floor, where science displays its most basic assumptions. In the last 10 years, scientific thought has been marked by frequent paradigm shifts--from classical laws to chaos theory and complexity. In the first half of this book, the authors attempt to review the quantum world for general readers, an effort that is frequently undercut by their playful approach, e.g., a conversation about the organization of development between Augusta Ada, Lord Byron's daughter and "a founding figure in computer science," and Wallace Lupert, a fictitious modern biologist. Moving on to examine the basis for a belief in simplicity, they introduce two new concepts: simplexity and complicity. The former refers to the tendency of a simpler order to emerge from complexity, the latter is a kind of interaction between coevolving systems that supports a tendency toward complexity. The authors, hoping to challenge orthodoxy and to stimulate thought, confound rather than clarify.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

First there was chaos theory, best described in James Gleick's Chaos: The Making of a New Science ( LJ 8/87); then came complexity theory, the subject of Roger Lewin's Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos ( LJ 9/1/92). Perhaps the next inevitable unifying theory of science to emerge is simplicity. Whereas the former two schools of thought seek philosophical congruences between divergent trends in modern science, simplicity, as conceived by Cohen and Stewart (a reproductive biologist and a mathematician, respectively), goes farther to examine the underlying physical reasons why these unities exist. This is a cleverly written, whirlwind tour of science that stretches the mind and, in a few places, strains credulity. Still, the authors freely admit that they are being speculative, and they invite their readers to accompany them upon their intellectual journey. Mind benders like this book usually appeal to a rather small but fanatical readership. Mid-sized public and undergraduate libraries should consider it.
- Gregg Sapp, Montana State Univ. Libs., Bozeman
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (March 2, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140291253
ISBN-13: 978-0140291254
Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.1 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #602,951 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Authors

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Jack Cohen

Ian Stewart

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
A yeshiva boy-a young man studying in a rabbinical college-took instruction from three rabbis. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
mental funnels, brain puns, reductionist story, delete whichever, creature space, chemical workshops, ice cream men, bad mutations, polygon space, genetic assimilation, evolutionary landscape, homeotic genes

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Theory of Everything, Sherlock Holmes, Big Bang, Book of Life, Panda Principle, United States, New Zealand, Richard Dawkins, Rift Valley, Stephen Jay Gould, Aunt Gertie, Balloon Island, New York, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Niels Bohr, Paul Dirac, Reductionist Nightmare, System of the World, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Red-headed Hound, The Red-headed League

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Citations (learn more)

100 books cite this book:

Does God Play Dice? The New Mathematics of Chaos by Ian Stewart on 4 pages
Life's Other Secret: The New Mathematics of the Living World by Ian Stewart on 4 pages
The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty by K. C. Cole on 4 pages
Order and Disorder: by David Rich on page 151, page 158, and page 193
From Here to Infinity by Ian Stewart in Front Matter, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)

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Books on Related Topics (learn more)

The Evolution Wars by Michael Ruse

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Figments of Reality by Ian Stewart

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9 Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, February 16, 2001

By	Tom Douglas "Tom" (Oxford, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World (Penguin Press Science) (Paperback)

The title of this book is slightly misleading, as it implies it is about chaos, complexity and simplicity.

In fact the first half of the book is a guided tour of biology, chemisty and physics. Covering how these great sciences got where they are today, from Newton to Darwin, DNA to the lattice structure of diamonds.

The second half then presents a new way to look at science. Rather then delving inside something to find underlying rules, we should view things in context.

For example, traditionally the law of gravity is seen as the underlying principle that explains planetary motion. Cohen and Stewart argue that it is just a rule (of thumb?) that fits the facts, and that there is no LAW of gravity.

It seems a subtle distinction, but on reading this book it is quite an important one, and it has certainly given me a different view of the world.

Very intelligent and always interesting, this book is written for the layman and is always at pains to explains matters thoroughly and use every possible analogy to help get ideas across.

This book is worth twice the money for the first half alone - a perfect primer for those interested in science, but who dont want to get technical.

Cohen and Stewart are high level experts in their respective fields, and yet they write simply and lucidly, resulting in a desire to read further.

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Modern Science 101 - a readable, eye-opening survey course, March 15, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World (Penguin Press Science) (Paperback)

In their preface, Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart describe this book as "a streamlined introduction to the central preoccupations of modern science." The concepts of chaos, complexity, and simplicity are central to the book; they are presented without jargon and with marvelous analogies and examples. Much of the discussion of complexity focuses on life, especially human life and human intelligence. An especially useful concept they introduce is the "brain pun," the human brain's tendency to see similarity (bird wings and bat wings) and infer causality or relationship.

This book is remarkable in how much it teaches the intelligent layperson. For example, frog DNA is more complicated than ours because it incorporates so many instructions to the tadpole on how to mature under a wide range of temperature conditions. Human embryos don't need an instruction book with a huge chapter entitled "Coping with Temperature Changes," because we initially grow in the marvelously temperature-controlled environment of the womb. Did you know that? I didn't.

Speaking of instruction books - Cohen and Stewart clearly show that the instruction book metaphor for DNA is flawed. Only a fraction of human DNA is meaningful; the rest is "junk." (Same for other species - it's life, not just us.) But junk DNA replicates, too. Also, for most species in the real world, a wide variety of gene patterns produce pretty much the same animal. Did you know any of this? I didn't.

This is an ideal book for the intelligent layperson whose taste runs to the "readable but accurate." At 443 pages plus notes in the paperback version, it's plenty long enough for a coast-to-coast flight, with some left over for the next day. Highly recommended; I can't wait to pass it on to friends.

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars all they want to do is remake science, April 9, 2001

By	Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World (Penguin Press Science) (Paperback)

This is a witty and at times brilliant book. The authors argue that the reductionist approach to science, which has flourished over the last 300 years, for a more holistic or contrextual approach. In the reductionist approach, scientists have choped problems into manageable bits - lab experiments or discreet mathematical problems - that eventually they assume will be fit together into a coherent whole. Nature in this view functions as a vast machine they can reduce and separate into its component parts.

TO prove their point, the authors embark on a dazzling tour of biology, chemistry and physics. But something is missing say the authors. What we know, they claim, are tiny islands in a sea of ignorance; it is self limiting as the larger questions get neglected. It is the causes of simplicity, they say - the order that suddenly emerges - that researchers should explore.

So, they conclude, it is time for a new set of questions. Unfortunately, just when we expect something new, it is here that the book gets a bit vague, with the authors falling back on anecdotes and speculation. They try to coin a new vocabulary ("simplexity" for the old and "complicity" for theirs); offer some diagrams of what they want, including an odd picture of mixing smoke with a unicorn head; and they harp on strange and abrupt conclusions, such as the importance of squid fat to the evolution of the human brain. But they do not offer a coherent new paradigm.

An uneven effort, but fun and very funny at times.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars From simplicity and complexity to simplexity and complicity
Jack Cohen is a biologist and Ian Stewart is a mathematician. It is interesting to see the impact of chaos theory and complexity theory to their specialized areas. Read more

Published 18 months ago by Raymond Poon

4.0 out of 5 stars Non-Elementalism As A Paradigm.
Jack Cohen with Ian Stewart in "The Collapse Of Chaos" attempt to show how Science must evolve. Theories such as Chaos, Quantum mechanics, Relativity, etc. Read more

Published on July 11, 2003 by Paul Sidle

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
I loved this book. I have never seen such a huge compilation of ideas from so many different topics compiled into one place. Read more

Published on September 25, 2002 by Blake McMullin

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Not terribly impressive. The first two thirds of the book offer no new ideas, the authors just rehash material you'll find elsewhere. Read more

Published on May 7, 2001

4.0 out of 5 stars Nature's Systems Coevolve to Simplicity
A starting quotation: " How exquisitely the individual mind is fitted to the external world and how exquisitely the external word is fitted to the mind". Read more

Published on November 24, 1997

5.0 out of 5 stars If you dig science books, get this one
If you are one of those who used to read Asimov's or Arthur C. Clarke's "science fact" books get this book. Read more

Published on February 1, 1997

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