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uhambe_nami's review
5.0
How did the zebra get its stripes? We've all come across the stories that provide us with some answer or another, mostly involving paint, scorching fire, or the animal in question standing quietly in the shade of some long grass blades. I thought they were beautiful stories, all of them, but none of the explanations were quite as convincing as the one we find in Deep Simplicity.
Gribbin takes us through the history of discoveries in the fields of physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology that lead to the development of chaos theory. His narrative focuses on the concepts of chaos, complexity and the idea that complex systems emerge on the edge of chaos; and he concludes that there are simple mathematical rules at the base of complex systems that we find in nature, the sort of systems that feed back on themselves so that what they do affects their own behaviour. Simple mathematical formulas can explain the patterns and the fractals found in nature, the evolution and extinction of species, the way cells take up different functions in our body, how every little zebra embryo gets its stripes, and ultimately, how life must have started, here on earth and elsewhere in the universe.
Of course, Gribbin doesn't have all the answers, and he readily admits that no one knows just what did occur when life emerged from non-life. But it all makes sense, and it's hard not to find the concepts he describes fascinating.
Gribbin takes us through the history of discoveries in the fields of physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology that lead to the development of chaos theory. His narrative focuses on the concepts of chaos, complexity and the idea that complex systems emerge on the edge of chaos; and he concludes that there are simple mathematical rules at the base of complex systems that we find in nature, the sort of systems that feed back on themselves so that what they do affects their own behaviour. Simple mathematical formulas can explain the patterns and the fractals found in nature, the evolution and extinction of species, the way cells take up different functions in our body, how every little zebra embryo gets its stripes, and ultimately, how life must have started, here on earth and elsewhere in the universe.
Of course, Gribbin doesn't have all the answers, and he readily admits that no one knows just what did occur when life emerged from non-life. But it all makes sense, and it's hard not to find the concepts he describes fascinating.
brew_and_books's review
3.0
Diving into 'Deep Simplicity' brought me back to my early grad days, where one module had us unraveling the intricacies of quantitative analysis in living systems. I learned about Chaos theory there for the first time. It sounds complex, but at its core, it's a simple idea—chaotic and intricate patterns emerge from straightforward origins, guided by even simpler principles.
This book reads like a scientsy captivating tale, igniting my curiosity about how simplicity gives birth to complex patterns. For instance, delving into the world of fractals, those mesmerizing geometric repetitions in nature, added even more layers to my understanding of the world's inner workings.
Gribbin, a physics maestro, gracefully extends his reach into biology, unraveling the captivating stories of life's evolution and the dramatic extinction of species, including dinosaurs. It's a journey that keeps you hooked. The key takeaway? Beneath the surface of complexity lies a bedrock of universal principles, a quest for deep simplicity in our intricate world.
The initial chapters take you on a captivating physics tour before venturing into other scientific realms. While diving into Chaos theory, Gribbin demands our attention, but the reward is immense. As someone treading the waters of Biophysics, it resonated deeply with me. However, if physics, math, or biology isn't your cup of tea, it might not be your go-to read. Nevertheless, it's nicely written, catering to curious souls without needing a degree to grasp its essence. Happy reading!
beatsbybeard's review
3.0
Interesting and mind-stretching though the material is, this book suffers from some British Academic Stuffiness that made my eyes glaze over time and again. Gribbin tries to make the underlying science accessible, but there's a bar there that even I couldn't quite hurdle over. This book could have used a more populist editor, I think, to trim the fat of biographical trivia, hair-splitting details that don't affect the larger ideas, and over-engineered sentences that run on and barely hold up under their own weight. Gripes aside, the basic idea is this: given simple processes, minuscule differences in starting conditions produce galactic-level effects far down the line. This occurs at every level we can observe, from atoms to molecules to cells to organisms to planets to solar systems to galaxies, and across a variety of events like evolution, earthquakes, and climate. Gribbin traces the development of these ideas mainly through mathematics and physics, but this book is more a telling of that history than an illumination of how we experience chaos day to day. What's admirable is just how elegantly this theoretical framework explains a multitude of seemingly unsolvable questions, like the origin of life on Earth. We have to constantly remind ourselves, though, that these things take place on a scale we are entirely unfit to conceptualize – hundreds of millions of years, distances between atoms or between solar systems, etc. So, in summary: I enjoyed the material, but not so much the ride.
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