Title: A disappointingly dull, and lackluster work.
Product review: Gell-Mann writes that this is his first and only book -- and that he came to write it to express to a wider audience his ruminations on "complex adaptive systems" (a phrase he seems happy to repeat again and again ...) and their relation to the fundamental world of physics. In this he fails, for his main points (which he has a hard time presenting concisely) are -- quite frankly -- rather obvious. (In this dismissal of his ideas I might well be mistaken; there may indeed be a treasure trove of ideas here. But if there is treasure to be found, it is buried well).What this book does offer is a concise summary of the complex world of particle physics which Gell-Mann helped to discover. This summary, taking up only a few short chapters near the middle of the book, is excellent. If Gell-Mann had maintained this level of precision throughout the book, it would have helped immeasurably.
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