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Complex Adaptive Systems links

Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

-- Benoit B. Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, 1983.


[Mandelbrot set]
chaos and fractals


 

However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead, or rather not alive.

-- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986

self-organising systems and Artificial Life
[Saturn's rings]
The size of an avalanche is unrelated to the grain of sand that triggers it. The same tiny grain of sand may unleash a tiny avalanche or the largest avalanche of the century. Big and little events can be triggered by the same kind of tiny cause. Poised systems need no massive mover to move massively.

-- Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe
(on self-organised criticality)


 

applets

Most of the applets require JDK 1.3


 

non-fiction

[most recent review]
book reviews

science fiction

[most recent review]


 

nanotechnology
I'd been thinking about what could be in short supply if we had anything boxes, and Stephenson [in The Diamond Age] added "people you can trust" to my list of volume, good locations (I'd been thinking in terms of natural wonders, but good (good having various definitions, of course) neighborhoods would also count), your own time, and other people's attention.

-- Nancy Lebovitz, rec.arts.sf.written, 2000


 

peripherally relevant