The Quark & the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple & the Complex
The Quark & the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple & the Complex
The Santa Fe Institute celebrates one of its founders with a new edition of a seminal work by the late Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann. Originally published in 1994, The Quark & the Jaguar spans the simple and the complex, examining the relationship between the fundamental laws of physics and the complexity and diversity of the natural world. Neither autobiography nor scientific treatise, this uniquely personal and unifying vision reflects Gell-Mann’s broad expertise, curiosity, and passion for topics as disparate as archaeology, linguistics, child development, and computers.
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Authors
Murray Gell-Mann
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Prologue: An Encounter in the Jungle
2. Early Light
3. Information & Crude Complexity
4. RANDomness
5. A Child Learning a Language
6. Bacteria Developing Drug Resistance
7. The Scientific Enterprise
8. The Power of Theory
9. What Is Fundamental?
Part Two: The Quantum Universe
10. Simplicity & Randomness in the Quantum Universe
11. A Contemporary View of Quantum Mechanics: Quantum Mechanics & the Classical Approximation
12. Quantum Mechanics & Flapdoodle
13. Quarks & All That: The Standard Model
14. Superstring Theory: Unification at Last?
15. Time’s Arrow: Forward & Backward Time
Part Three: Selection & Fitness
16. Selection at Work in Biological Evolution & Elsewhere
17. From Learning to Creative Thinking
18. Superstition & Skepticism
19. Adaptive & Maladaptive Schemata
20. Machines that Learn or Simulate Learning
Part Four: Diversity & Sustainability
21. Diversities Under Threat
22. Transitions to a More Sustainable World
23. Afterword
Index
News
Citation Information
Book: The Quark & the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple & the Complex
Written by Murray Gell-Mann
$13.99 (Paperback); $2.99 (eBook); $29.99 (Hardcover)
Publisher and imprint: The SFI Press Compass Series
524 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-947864-46-7
Publication Date: November 14, 2023