We live in an age of increasing complexity, where accelerating technology and global interconnection hold more promise – and more peril – than any other time in human history. As well as financial crises, issues around climate change, automation, growing inequality and polarization are all rooted in the economy, yet standard economic predictions fail us.

Many books have been written about Doyne Farmer and his pioneering work in chaos and complexity theory. Making Sense of Chaos is the first in his own words, presenting a manifesto for doing economics better. In a tale of science and ideas, Farmer fuses his profound knowledge with stories from his life to explain how to harness a scientific revolution to address the economic conundrums facing society.

Using big data and ever more powerful computers, we can for the first time apply complex systems science to economic activity, building realistic models of the global economy. The resulting simulations and the emergent behaviour we observe form the cornerstone of complexity economics. This new science, Farmer shows, will allow us to test ideas and make significantly better economic predictions – and, ultimately, create a better world.

More at: www.penguin.co.uk

Beyond is a Socratic love story, a Platonic dialogue, a Bhagavad Gita of our times: a philosophical quest folded into an epic exploration of the world. Imagine an encounter with unconfused human existence. What does it mean to fall in love with God? Can the Good only adopt the role of a servant, or can it rise to provide a beacon of light ruling us?

How often we are caught in the myopic perspective that the material world is all there is! And yet, mathematics and science themselves point to a greater, all-embracing, unchanging reality. This insight suffices to move past selfishness and advance humanity to the next level. Beyond dismantles the artificial borders that have for too long separated genres: here, science confronts philosophy, mathematics engages religion, poetry brings nonfiction to life, time meets infinity. Beyond is sui generis.

Read the full article at: angelicopress.com

How computers simulate cities and how they are also being embedded in cities, changing our behavior and the way in which cities evolve.

At every stage in the history of computers and communications, it is safe to say we have been unable to predict what happens next. When computers first appeared nearly seventy-five years ago, primitive computer models were used to help understand and plan cities, but as computers became faster, smaller, more powerful, and ever more ubiquitous, cities themselves began to embrace them. As a result, the smart city emerged. In The Computable City, Michael Batty investigates the circularity of this peculiar evolution: how computers and communications changed the very nature of our city models, which, in turn, are used to simulate systems composed of those same computers.

Batty first charts the origins of computers and examines how our computational urban models have developed and how they have been enriched by computer graphics. He then explores the sequence of digital revolutions and how they are converging, focusing on continual changes in new technologies, as well as the twenty-first-century surge in social media, platform economies, and the planning of the smart city. He concludes by revisiting the digital transformation as it continues to confound us, with the understanding that the city, now a high-frequency twenty-four-hour version of itself, changes our understanding of what is possible.

More at: mitpress.mit.edu

An ode to systems engineers―whose invisible work undergirds our life―and an exploration of the wicked problems they tackle.

Our world is filled with pernicious problems. How, for example, did novice pilots learn to fly without taking to the air and risking their lives? How should cities process mountains of waste without polluting the environment? Challenges that tangle personal, public, and planetary aspects―often occurring in health care, infrastructure, business, and policy―are known as wicked problems, and they are not going away anytime soon.

In linked chapters focusing on key facets of systems engineering―efficiency, vagueness, vulnerability, safety, maintenance, and resilience―engineer Guru Madhavan illuminates how wicked problems have emerged throughout history and how best to address them in the future. He examines best-known tragedies and lesser-known tales, from the efficient design of battleships to a volcano eruption that curtailed global commerce, and how maintenance of our sanitation systems constitutes tikkun olam, or repair of our world. Braided throughout is the uplifting tale of Edwin Link, an unsung hero who revolutionized aviation with his flight trainer. In Link’s story, Madhavan uncovers a model mindset to engage with wickedness.

An homage to society’s innovators and maintainers, Wicked Problems offers a refreshing vision for readers of all backgrounds to build a better future and demonstrates how engineering is a cultural choice―one that requires us to restlessly find ways to transform society, but perhaps more critically, to care for the creations that already exist.

More at: www.amazon.com

There are many images of science and the activities of scientists. Some would imply that science will eventually reach the limits of knowledge while others create an expectation of endless horizons. Some people would believe that science has or will provide the answers to key open questions that lie ahead, while others experience fear regarding its development. In this book, we will look at all these aspects, going from particles, via atoms, cells, stars, galaxies, our place in the universe, to explore what makes us, human beings, really unique in nature: our ability to imagine and shape the future by making use of the scientific method. The book is an EPS action designed to address the social dimension of science and the grand challenges in physics that will bring radical change to developed societies, raise standards of living at the global scale, and provide basic understanding of nature on the horizon 2050.

Read the full book at: iopscience.iop.org