Author Description

"Foundational Papers in Complexity Science presents the first unified charting of the full territory of complexity science--an essential resource for navigating the modern world. This project maps the development of complex-systems science through eighty-nine revolutionary works originally published between 1922 and 2000. Curated by SFI President David C. Krakauer, each seminal paper is introduced and placed into its historical context, with enduring insights discussed by leading contemporary complexity scientists. These four volumes are a product of collective intelligence. More than a compilation, Foundational Papers represents large-scale collaboration within the SFI community--brilliant thinkers who have contextualized the work that shaped their own research, resulting in a sparkling demonstration of how complexity shatters the usual scientific divisions and a look back at the path we've followed in order to gain a clearer view of what lies ahead. Volume I spans the turbulent years from 1922 to 1962. Across several decades of war, runaway technological invention, and economic upheaval, complexity science emerges through the integration of ideas from evolution, computation, dynamics, and statistical physics. Volume 2 examines the utopian-dystopian years from 1962 to 1973: a decade of global instability, social revolution, space exploration, and growing ecological awareness. Complexity science challenges our understanding of prediction, control, and uncertainty. Volume 3 describes the maturing of complexity science in the age of democratized computing. Mini-computers and personal computers supporting computer graphics, simulation environments, and numerical mathematics, intersect with nonlinear dynamics, evolutionary theory, and statistical physics. This culminates in new models and theories--from autopoiesis to synergetics, cellular automata to agent-based models--and their many applications, including ecological resilience, complex materials, the origin of life,