ComplexAll

Sciences of Complexity

Collecting the branches under one umbrella has taken nearly a century. The University of California lists over 1000 titles on complexity. Some milestones:

1924, Alfred James Lotka book published Elements of Physical Biology Cited as a forerunner of Cybernetics by Herbert Simon (1981, p. 194) 1948, Warren Weaver article, Science and Complexity, American Scientist,36(1948):536 (Simon, 1981, p. 195) This is the first explicit discussion known to me on what we now call complexity. 1962, Herbert Simon article, The Architecture of Complexity Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, December 1962 Treats extensively "The Evolution of Complex Systems" into hierarchies 1969, Herbert Simon book (2nd ed. 1981), The Sciences of the Artificial, reprints The Architecture of Complexity of 1962 as Ch. 7 1977, Waddington book, Tools for Thought First and still the best text on complexity 1984, the Santa Fe Institute created to study the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Heinz Pagels book, The Dreams of Reason Subtitle: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine book, Exploring Complexity, An Introduction: Elements of Physical Biology; Cited as a forerunner of Cybernetics by Herbert Simon (1981, p. 194)
1948, Warren Weaver article, Science and Complexity, American Scientist,36(1948):536 (Simon, 1981, p. 195) This is the first explicit discussion known to me on what we now call complexity. 1962, Herbert Simon article, The Architecture of Complexity Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, December 1962 Treats extensively "The Evolution of Complex Systems" into hierarchies 1969, Herbert Simon book (2nd ed. 1981), The Sciences of the Artificial, reprints The Architecture of Complexity of 1962 as Ch. 7 1977, Waddington book, Tools for Thought First and still the best text on complexity 1984, the Santa Fe Institute created to study the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Heinz Pagels book, The Dreams of Reason Subtitle: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine book, Exploring Complexity, An Introduction: American Scientist,36(1948):536 (Simon, 1981, p. 195); This is the first explicit discussion known to me on what we now call complexity.
1962, Herbert Simon article, The Architecture of Complexity Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, December 1962 Treats extensively "The Evolution of Complex Systems" into hierarchies 1969, Herbert Simon book (2nd ed. 1981), The Sciences of the Artificial, reprints The Architecture of Complexity of 1962 as Ch. 7 1977, Waddington book, Tools for Thought First and still the best text on complexity 1984, the Santa Fe Institute created to study the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Heinz Pagels book, The Dreams of Reason Subtitle: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine book, Exploring Complexity, An Introduction: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, December 1962; Treats extensively "The Evolution of Complex Systems" into hierarchies
1969, Herbert Simon book (2nd ed. 1981), The Sciences of the Artificial, reprints The Architecture of Complexity of 1962 as Ch. 7 1977, Waddington book, Tools for Thought First and still the best text on complexity 1984, the Santa Fe Institute created to study the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Heinz Pagels book, The Dreams of Reason Subtitle: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine book, Exploring Complexity, An Introduction: reprints The Architecture of Complexity of 1962 as Ch. 7
1977, Waddington book, Tools for Thought First and still the best text on complexity 1984, the Santa Fe Institute created to study the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Heinz Pagels book, The Dreams of Reason Subtitle: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine book, Exploring Complexity, An Introduction: First and still the best text on complexity
1984, the Santa Fe Institute created to study the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Heinz Pagels book, The Dreams of Reason Subtitle: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine book, Exploring Complexity, An Introduction
1989, Heinz Pagels book, The Dreams of Reason Subtitle: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity 1989, Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine book, Exploring Complexity, An Introduction: Subtitle: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity
1989, Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine book, Exploring Complexity, An Introduction

By 1990, there were many books, journals, book series, conferences, etc, on this theme.

Revised 23 June 2002 by Ralph Abraham, <abraham@vismath.org>