Complexity: A Guided Tour

"Melanie Mitchell has written a scholarly yet entertaining travelogue through the fundamental concepts of complexity, wonderfully demonstrating how key ideas from computation help to unify seemingly disparate phenomena.”

—Simon A. Levin, George M. Moffett Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Biocomplexity, Princeton University

“Finally! For years people have been asking me where they can learn the basics of complexity theory. Now I’ve got the answer: Read Melanie Mitchell’s book. It’s clear, gentle, and fair to the skeptics as well as to the proselytizers. Written by a leading scientist who’s also a terrific expositor, Complexity: A Guided Tour is the best way to learn the principles of this exciting field.”

—Steven Strogatz, Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics, Cornell University, and author of Sync

“Melanie Mitchell’s new book is a highly readable account of the important field of complexity, detailing the search for and the many answers that are emerging about the factors that are common to all complex systems. From chaos and information theory to computation, evolution, genetics, society, and life itself, Complexity is easily the best general book on this topic.”

—Mark Pagel, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, and External Professor, Santa Fe Institute

“An able and amiable guide, Melanie Mitchell takes us on a wide-ranging tour of the sciences of complexity. From Chaos Theory and Cellular Automata to Networks, Mitchell’s brisk yet thoughtful prose entertains and informs all the way.”

—Duncan Watts, Principal Research Scientist, Yahoo! Research, and Professor of Sociology, Columbia University