Simplexity

Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple)

By: Jeffrey Kluger

Narrated by: Jeffrey Kluger, Holter Graham

Why are the instruction manuals for cell phones incomprehensible?
Why is a truck driver's job as hard as a CEO's?
How can 10 percent of every medical dollar cure 90 percent of the world's disease?
Why do bad teams win so many games?

Complexity, as any scientist will tell you, is a slippery idea. Things that seem complicated can be astoundingly simple; things that seem simple can be dizzyingly complex. A houseplant may be more intricate than a manufacturing plant. A colony of garden ants may be more complicated than a community of people. A sentence may be richer than a book, a couplet more complicated than a song.

These and other paradoxes are driving a whole new science--simplexity -- that is redefining how we look at the world and using that new view to improve our lives in fields as diverse as economics, biology, cosmology, chemistry, psychology, politics, child development, the arts, and more. Seen through the lens of this surprising new science, the world becomes a delicate place filled with predictable patterns--patterns we often fail to see as we're time and again fooled by our instincts, by our fear, by the size of things, and even by their beauty.

In Simplexity, Time senior writer Jeffrey Kluger shows how a drinking straw can save thousands of lives; how a million cars can be on the streets but just a few hundred of them can lead to gridlock; how investors behave like atoms; how arithmetic governs abstract art and physics drives jazz; why swatting a TV indeed makes it work better. As simplexity moves from the research lab into popular consciousness it will challenge our models for modern living. Jeffrey Kluger adeptly translates newly evolving theory into a delightful theory of everything that will have you rethinking the rules of business, family, art -- your world.©2008 Jeffrey Kluger; (P)2008 Hyperion

Not so simple

Starts promising, but the author clear loses sight of his subject as he struggles - unsuccessfully - to encapsulate simplexity as anything more than a vague notion. A failed effort.

Nuggets here and there...

This book is a somewhat like a magazne, with interesting articles peppered here and there, but there is no overarching theme which holds the text together. I wish the author had drawn some conclusions about the otherwise interesting observations he makes about such phenomena as traffic patterns, overly complex technology, and human nature.

Ironic

Ironically enough, this book, while interesting, is a bit symplistic.

Huh?

There was nothing memorable about this book. The idea is great, but there is nothing new here. I didn't even find it very interesting.

Too simplicity? Maybe. Where's the beef? I don't think this book will add to your life. Skip it. Go for Reality Check. Much more interesting and entertaining.

Great book, maybe 2 chapters too long

I love Jeffrey Kluger’s writing, but I thought the complexity/simplicity overlap idea was stretched a bit thin on some topics.