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A review by uhambe_nami
Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity by John Gribbin
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.