I've had this a few weeks and I was supposed to read a different book on quantum information theory but in an early morning haze I picked this up by mistake...
I have to say it's one of the best written science books I've read in a long while. The language is straightforward, well written and carefully clear. It avoids unnecessarily long terms and technical jargon as well. Which for a book aimed at graduates is no mean feat.
The authors present three things in the book - the idea of modelling as a useful scientific tool, the basics of those models currently in use and current areaas of open debate. All in all a very interesting tour of current thinking around complex systems and how they arise, evolve and can be modelled. The book is just one in a series of like themed explorations so I shall definitely be getting a couple of the others. It's even prompted me to go back to my agent based markets model to do some more work.
Perhaps one question it carefully avoids is the nature of accessible information. Whilst they do discuss what questions we can hope to answer I'm not sure enough is made of the subjects we can't look to models to answer (or perhaps any mathematical reasoning). Having said that though they are clear about this being a subject in its infancy and it was refreshing to read a book like this that was devoid of grandiose claims regarding what can be accomplished.
All in all a highly recommended book, even for those with only poor math skills (as long as your ability to think logically is reasonably developed).
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