The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
By Gary William Flake
* Publisher: The MIT Press
* Number Of Pages: 492
* Publication Date: 1998-07-10
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0262062003
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780262062008
* Binding: Hardcover
Product Description:
Honorable Mention, 1998, category of Computer Science, Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc.
"Simulation," writes Gary Flake in his preface, "becomes a form of experimentation in a universe of theories. The primary purpose of this book is to celebrate this fact."
In this book, Gary William Flake develops in depth the simple idea that recurrent rules can produce rich and complicated behaviors. Distinguishing "agents" (e.g., molecules, cells, animals, and species) from their interactions (e.g., chemical reactions, immune system responses, sexual reproduction, and evolution), Flake argues that it is the computational properties of interactions that account for much of what we think of as "beautiful" and "interesting." From this basic thesis, Flake explores what he considers to be today's four most interesting computational topics: fractals, chaos, complex systems, and adaptation.
Each of the book's parts can be read independently, enabling even the casual reader to understand and work with the basic equations and programs. Yet the parts are bound together by the theme of the computer as a laboratory and a metaphor for understanding the universe. The inspired reader will experiment further with the ideas presented to create fractal landscapes, chaotic systems, artificial life forms, genetic algorithms, and artificial neural networks.
Summary: An enjoyable read
Rating: 5
Granted you can find most of this info elsewhere but still this is a great read. Well written, a nice collection of material, and downloadable source code. I found it to be a very inspiring book.
Summary: Great book
Rating: 5
This is an excellent book. I've been reading it for weeks. The chapters are not long, but the content is amazing. The author combines explanations and equations in a format that is demonstrative and repeatible. This is a very good book to study yielding the understanding necessary to penetrate many other advanced books on complexity theory. The author starts by examining whole numbers and real number problems. Next, he examine Godel's incomplete theory of predicate logic showing that no formal language is complete. Next, he examines fractals, self-similar patterns, low ordered with high compression and high order with low order compression, L-systems, and Juliet and Mandel-brot fractals. Fractals open up an emmense study into the complex pattern from simple rules and recursion. Next, he examines equations of strange attraction, chaos, and demonstrates stability behavior within complexity. Next, he looks at small universes created by running CA. NNs and GAs are examined in the last chapter. I was excited to write down many of the authors processes and run them using OpenGL and C. I believe this book to be an excellent book for college students. The material is easy to understand and the content very demonstratible. Cause and effect are very cohesive in this book. Even though the book seems simple, it covers an vast amount of topics necessary to understanding AI and AL.
http://ifile.it/yf3dhep/425__9780262062008__9780585024400__0262062003.tar.gz
