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Title: Popular science at its best
Review: Books about complexity and self-organization might be a dime a dozen, but this book by Philip Ball is unique. Underneath its popular style is a serious analysis of the science that underlies the concepts of complexity and collective dynamic phenomena. The analysis of specific examples of self-organizing systems (e.g., traffic models) is quite professional, with good referencing of the original literature. At the same time, the writing is clear and understandable to a non-specialist, and the examples given in the book will stimulate the interest of most readers. Another strength of this book is its historical approach; the author shows how the dynamic concepts evolved from 19-th century thermodynamics, to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, to the science of non-integrable dynamic systems. I really enjoyed reading it.
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