A middling book of pop science that attempts to explain why we so
often see complex events as simple phenomena, and vice versa.Time
writer Kluger (Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of
Polio, 2005, etc.) simplifies - and at times dumbs down - some of
the scientific notions that occupied James Gleick's Chaos (1988).
Many of Kluger's lines of questioning are fruitful. After all, if
scientific laws can be adduced to define the workings of the stock
market, someone stands to make a bunch of money. Yet, what we know
of the market, Kluger writes, is "surprising and counterintuitive,"
in that "millions of blind and self-interested trades somehow
settle on a fair value for tens of thousands of different
companies." Naturally, though, it's much more complex than that.
Just so, writes Kluger, viewed a certain way, a pencil becomes a
complex object enfolding many technologies and materials, much as a
Florida election disguises countless actions gone wrong. Sometimes
these lines of questioning are not so fruitful, however: It seems
stretching the point to say that the 9/11 hijackings were an
impromptu system of luck, guesswork, fear and "ergonomics, fluid
dynamics, engineering, even physics." This kind of
sizzle-but-no-steak writing is common in the pop-sci genre, and
Kluger atones with case studies developed at somewhat more leisure,
such as his examination of how speed humps work less well than
neighborhood associations might wish. The complex human brain, it
turns out, can be fooled into slowing down by a simple optical
illusion. The book is scattershot, but with a few take-home points
by way of reward - one, meant for old-timers, being that whereas
smacking a piece of consumer electronics may have been a good fix a
generation ago, it seldom works on techno gear today, satisfying
though it might be.Moderately entertaining airplane fare - in the
Malcolm Gladwell school of explaining the world as it is, but
without the flair. (Kirkus Reviews)
Why does kicking the TV work? What can the US military learn from
the lowly bacterium? Why are the instruction manuals for cell
phones incomprehensible? How does a spark of a single virus trigger
an epidemic that claims millions? In recent years, cutting-edge
studies in fields such as economics, genetics, stock-market
analysis and child development have hit on a startling new theory -
'simplexity'. To put it simply, simple things can be more
complicated than they seem, and complex things more simple. The
evidence is before our eyes: in your elaborate network of household
plumbing actually run on a very basic mechanism, or the crystal
paperweight on your desk, spectacular in its complexity. As
simplexity moves from the research lab into popular consciousness
it will challenge our models for modern living. You'll never
unknowingly whack the TV again and you'll understand just how much
it means to smile at your child. Popular science journalist Jeffrey
Kluger adeptly translates cutting-edge theory into a high-octane
history of everything, which will have you rethinking the rules of
business and pleasure. From the micro to the macro, Simplexity is a
startling reassessment of the building blocks of life and how they
affect us all.
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