Quote:
Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8
Chaos: Making a New Science. By James Gleick.
The book's way above my head. But one thing that I am capable of grasping is that, at only 99 cents, it is 95% off of the digital list price!
For centuries, scientific thought was focused on bringing order to the natural world. But even as relativity and quantum mechanics undermined that rigid certainty in the first half of the twentieth century, the scientific community clung to the idea that any system, no matter how complex, could be reduced to a simple pattern. In the 1960s, a small group of radical thinkers began to take that notion apart, placing new importance on the tiny experimental irregularities that scientists had long learned to ignore. Miniscule differences in data, they said, would eventually produce massive ones—and complex systems like the weather, economics, and human behavior suddenly became clearer and more beautiful than they had ever been before.
4.3 stars (258), New York Times bestseller, etc., etc.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Q3RRPI. |
I already have an epub copy of this on my tablet close to the top of my reading list. It looks to be an interesting book, is well illustrated and looks ok for lay readers - well worth the 99c for readers interested in physics (my first university degree was in physics so I am not just spouting smoke out my ears
in saying so, even though I have just skimmed it so far).
In fact having been reminded of it I have jumped it up so it is now the next to be read for me
.