About the Author:
Mark Ward is the technology reporter for the BBC. He was the technology correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, and has also written numerous articles for New Scientist, The Financial Times, Computer Weekly, and Wired UK. He is the author of Virtual Organisms (TLD/SMP 2000) and lives in Surrey, England.
From Library Journal:
If you believe that one book can reveal everything contained in Ward's wildly ambitious subtitle, then there's a bridge in New York I'd like to sell you. It's true that some intriguing even wondrous science lies behind the recently discovered tendency of order and fractal symmetry to emerge within complex systems. This subject has been presented effectively in other recent books, such as those by Steven Johnson and John Holland, both titled Emergence. The flaw, though, is that Ward, a BBC technology reporter, oversells the phenomenon as some sort of cosmic sophistry that he assures us can give meaning to life. (In the book's final three sentences, he proclaims, "We belong here. We know our place. We know our place and we are home.") When the author sticks to science, he does a credible job of explaining pattern emergence in various systems, from climates to stock markets. When he exalts, however, his points come off about as convincingly as a cross between Obi-Wan Kenobi's promise that "the force is with you" and a diluted bowl of "chicken soup for the physicist's soul." Not recommended. Gregg Sapp, Science Lib., SUNY at Albany
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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