Understanding a new scientific frontier...

Complexity is an umbrella term for a large group of interdisciplinary sciences having to do with complex systems – systems with vast numbers of interacting parts having high degrees of structural and functional organization. Biological organisms and ecosystems are the best examples of complex systems but they can also be physical, chemical, ecological, and social systems.

Related terms include: systems theory, complexity theory, emergence, self-organization, self-adaptive systems, chaos theory, nonequilibrium systems, nonlinear systems, information theory, and cybernetic systems.

Complex systems can be studied in mathematics, computer science, thermodynamics, chemistry, biology, evolution, ecology, social theory, demographics, organizational management, and many other disciplines.

Complexity, complex systems, and the large body of research behind them represent, in the words of one of the founders, physical chemist Ilya Prigogine, a “new dialogue with nature” in which the assumptions of reductionistic and deterministic science (which includes contemporary theoretical physics) are superseded by a view in which uncertainty, instability, irreversibility, and nonequilibrium are the new norm. Complexity is the term for this exciting new scientific frontier.

The booklist here is a tiny fraction of thousands of volumes and research papers related to the study of complex systems in various disciplines. For excellent free online video tutorials on complexity see the YouTube channel for The Systems Academy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCutC....

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Anyone can add books to this list.