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Industry: Email Alert RSS FeedCosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature - Book Review
Science News, Nov 16, 2002
ERIC J. CHAISSON
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If there's one thing that unites the universe, it's that things change. Along an arrow of time starting at the Big Bang, Chaisson depicts cosmic evolution in a wide range of systems: particulate, galactic, stellar, planetary, chemical, biological, and cultural. Over time, all these systems--be they manifested in worms, human brains, or microchips--become both more complex and more ordered as a result of changes in energy densities, according to Chaisson. What is perhaps most provocative here is the author's quantitative method to measure various systems' complexity and graph the curve of cosmic evolution. As time marches on, Chaisson suggests, certain systems will become even more complex than the human mind. Indeed, at the top of his curve of cosmic evolution currently resides the Pentium microchip. Originally published in hardcover in 2001. HUP, 2002, 274 p., b&w photos/charts, paperback, $17.95.
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