Complexity and Chaos

By: Dr. Roger White

Narrated by: Edwin Newman

Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Newtonian physics described a regular, clock-like world of forces and reaction; randomness was equated with incomplete knowledge. But scientists in the late 20th century have found patterns in things formerly thought to be "chaotic"; their theories help explain the unstable, irregular, yet highly structured features of everyday experience. It now seems likely that randomness and chaos play an essential role in the evolution of the living world and in intelligence itself.

The Science and Discovery series recreates history's 4,000-year journey to better understand the world through scientific means. Scientific discovery has often disrupted conventional wisdom. This is a story of vested interests and independent thinkers, experiments and theories, change and progress.

Don't miss the rest of the Science and Discovery series.

©1993 Carmichael & Carmichael, Inc. and Knowledge Products (P)1993 Carmichael & Carmichael, Inc. and Knowledge Products

Big disappointment

I couldn't listen to this book for more than 15 minutes. It characterizes "regular" science as unwaveringly Newtonian and Euclidean in order to set fire to an imaginary scientific straw man that never existed. The author apparently wants to clear the way for a supposedly much better science of complexity and chaos. The science of complexity and chaos doesn't need this kind of special pleading; please give me a book that explains chaos theory without all the slah and burn! The ahistorical attitude that "science used to be so rigid but now at last it's getting good" shows an ignorance of BOTH science and history.

And one more thing before I go delete this waste-of-space from my iPod. The author uses a lot of quotes from various scientists to illustrate his ideas - a technique I like - but the audiobook editors of this version insist on having these quotes read by actors who employ various hokey accents (gutteral Germanic intonations, suave fake-French pronounciations, Masterpiece Theater Britspeak, etc.). This is a terrible distraction and only further frustrated me as I attempted to plug away at this book.

If you want a good general explanation of complexity and chaos, look elsewhere.

Gotta balance the other review. This was good.

There is a lot of information in this. I listened several times, gaining something new each time.

The "actors who employ various hokey accents" bugged me, like the previous reviewer, until I found out at the end that at least one of the voices was actually Ilya Prigogine, the Nobel Prize winning physical chemist who discovered much of the content. I was honored to have that voice.

There is a lot of information in this book. It bounces around many disciplines, attempting to weave biology, chemistry, physics, philosophy, and economics together to show common threads. This is tough to do and tough to digest. For me, it was worth it. I have to give it a five to balance out the previous reviewer's 1. I almost didn't get this because of that review. That would have been a shame.

Very interesting book but I hate the narration

A lot of very interesting topics for further thinking and discussing but I really hated this stupid accent acting. Why? Neither topic or deepness of the book invites for these cartoonish parodies

Loved every minuite of it

Over the past two months or so I've been getting into complexity science and have been looking for a resource like this, it hit the spot for me!

Interesting but challenging listen

It didn't keep me tuned in 100%. Although it was interesting to have quotes read by the actual scientists/mathematicians. My big takeaway is that complexity and chaos are much larger forces in nature than we are were taught in school.

Good references

I enjoyed this book as an introduction to supplement my PhD studies. Contrary to other reviews, I found the guest narrators for quoted passages creative and held my interest. The guest narrators highlighted important points and gave the book a feeling of having a conversation. Although some of the accents were difficult to understand, once I got used to them I didn’t have much problem with it. I especially enjoyed chapters 8-10. The material was laid out methodically and ideas built upon each other logically.

A good nibble sparks a voracious hunger

While I agree with many commentators that the fake (Austro/Swiss/Bohemian) accents of the non-narrators distracts from the subject matter, enough gets through via Edwin Newman's pleasing tones to leave the listener with hook of chaos and fractals firmly implanted in the brain.

This Entire Series Has an Acting Problem

I have listened to a number of books in this series, especially in economics. The information is always good, the topic selection superb. But I agree with other reviewers that the dramatic production is way too... dramatic. The quotes sound as if they were being read by drunken thespians overacting their ten second roles. It would be merely funny except that their impersonations of German scientists or French statesmen are nearly impossible to decipher. (Sorry, but it doesn't help that some are real German scientists.) Maybe it was worth a try, but I wish they would record the whole series over again with a simple, well-paced reading.

Very interesting

I really liked how it was narrated. Good book. Insightful and entertaining. I definitely recommend

After reading “Chaos”

It really breaks down some key ideas to make them more coherent, worth a read

starts off great but..

I couldn't listen to the last hour because of the annoying French accent and the same old science drivel in every science book.

Excellent!

This is a very good description of the fractal and holistic behavior of reality, clearly put across and at a pace and subject detail to keep one interested till the end!

Excellent

The life long reevaluation of one's learning and understanding of not only the present and past but all points of observation and experience physical and meta-phisical as they occur and pass into conscious memory of function and experience and there in increasing understanding, the pure objective of the sentient being.
Tom O'Rourke 1953....?

Good intro

Nice introduction to the topic. The narrator must have been engaging because I rarely listen to books to the end!