how nature works: the science of self-organized criticality / Edition 1

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More About This Textbook

Overview

Self-organized criticality, the spontaneous development of systems to a critical state, is the first general theory of complex systems with a firm mathematical basis. This theory describes how many seemingly desperate aspects of the world, from sk market crashes to mass extinctions, avalanches to solar flares, all share a set of simple, easily described properties.
"...a'must read'...Bak writes with such ease and lucidity, and his ideas are so intriguing...essential reading for those interested in complex systems...it will reward a sufficiently skeptical reader." -NATURE
"...presents the theory (self-organized criticality) in a form easily absorbed by the non-mathematically inclined reader." -BOSTON BOOK REVIEW
"I picture Bak as a kind of scientific musketeer; flamboyant, touchy, full of swagger and ready to join every fray... His book is written with panache. The style is brisk, the content stimulating. I recommend it as a bracing experience." -NEW SCIENTIST

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780387947914
  • Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York, LLC
  • Publication date: 8/29/1996
  • Edition description: 1996
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 226
  • Sales rank: 1,388,273
  • Product dimensions: 6.42 (w) x 9.46 (h) x 0.95 (d)

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments
Ch. 1 Complexity and Criticality 1
Ch. 2 The Discovery of Self-Organized Criticality 33
Ch. 3 The Sandpile Paradigm 49
Ch. 4 Real Sandpiles and Landscape Formation 65
Ch. 5 Earthquakes, Starquakes, and Solar Flares 85
Ch. 6 The "Game of Life": Complexity Is Criticality 105
Ch. 7 Is Life a Self-Organized Critical Phenomenon? 113
Ch. 8 Mass Extinctions and Punctuated Equilibria in a Simple Model of Evolution 129
Ch. 9 Theory of the Punctuated Equilibrium Model 161
Ch. 10 The Brain 175
Ch. 11 On Economics and Traffic Jams 183
Bibliography 199
Index 207
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