Deep Simplicity: Chaos, Complexity and the Emergence of Life

Description

In this brilliantly enlightening book John Gribbin, the man who made quantum theory clear with In Search of Schrodinger's Cat shows that complexity is simple, and explains how life has emerged from simple systems. Deep Simplicity is the first book to synthesize all the various ideas about chaos and complexity - from the butterfly effect to the intriguing concept of Gaia. It reveals that at the root of even what seems to be the most random behaviour there are actually simple laws of cause and effect - essentially the same ones discovered by Newton 300 years ago. But the sensitive way in which systems respond to those basic laws, combined with feedback, can explain why, for example, just one vehicle braking on a motorway can cause a traffic jam; how a tiny genetic mutation or environmental change may makea species develop in a wholly different way; or why wild weather fluctuations can result from a slight change in atmospheric pressure. It can even explain people, the most complex systems of all, showing how we evolved from the most widely available raw materials in the Universe.

John Gribbin is one of today's greatest writers of popular science and the author of bestselling books, including In Search of Schr dinger's Cat, Stardust, Science- A History and Deep Simplicity. He is famous to his many fans for making complex ideas simple, and says that his aim in his writing - much of it done with his wife, Mary Gribbin - is to share with his readers his sense of wonder at the strangeness of the universe. John Gribbin trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is currently Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.

"Exhilarating... Gribbin uses a step-by-step historical method to ground contemporary thought in classical physics' the Daily Telegraph 'Gribbin...takes us through the basics of all this with his customary talent for accessibility and clarity' the Sunday Times '(Gribbin) breathes life into the core ideas of complexity science, and argues convincingly that the basic laws, even in biology, will ultimately turn out to be simple' Nature' "What makes Deep Simplicity different from other books on complexity theory is that Gribbin ! goes back to the fundamentals' Daily Telegraph 'Gribbin takes us through the basics with his customary talent for accessibility and clarity' Sunday Times 'One is left feeling even more - if this is possible - filled with admiration for science and delight at the world it investigates' Financial Times 'Gribbin breathes life into the core ideas of complexity science' Nature'