Natural Complexity
eBook - PDF

Natural Complexity

A Modeling Handbook

  1. 376 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Natural Complexity

A Modeling Handbook

About this book

This book provides a short, hands-on introduction to the science of complexity using simple computational models of natural complex systems—with models and exercises drawn from physics, chemistry, geology, and biology. By working through the models and engaging in additional computational explorations suggested at the end of each chapter, readers very quickly develop an understanding of how complex structures and behaviors can emerge in natural phenomena as diverse as avalanches, forest fires, earthquakes, chemical reactions, animal flocks, and epidemic diseases.

Natural Complexity provides the necessary topical background, complete source codes in Python, and detailed explanations for all computational models. Ideal for undergraduates, beginning graduate students, and researchers in the physical and natural sciences, this unique handbook requires no advanced mathematical knowledge or programming skills and is suitable for self-learners with a working knowledge of precalculus and high-school physics.

Self-contained and accessible, Natural Complexity enables readers to identify and quantify common underlying structural and dynamical patterns shared by the various systems and phenomena it examines, so that they can form their own answers to the questions of what natural complexity is and how it arises.

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Yes, you can access Natural Complexity by Paul Charbonneau in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Physical Sciences & Data Modelling & Design. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. CONTENTS
  6. Preface
  7. 1. Introduction: What Is Complexity?
  8. 2 Iterated Growth
  9. 3 Aggregation
  10. 4 Percolation
  11. 5 Sandpiles
  12. 6 Forest Fires
  13. 7 Traffic Jams
  14. 8 Earthquakes
  15. 9 Epidemics
  16. 10 Flocking
  17. 11 Pattern Formation
  18. 12 Epilogue
  19. A. Basic Elements of the Python Programming Language
  20. B. Probability Density Functions
  21. C Random Numbers and Walks
  22. D Lattice Computation
  23. Index