Fun to read - Changes your perspective!
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I really enjoyed this book, I just grabbed it at the airport because I needed something to read.
It must be hard, covering so many topics.
You may need a background in physics to understand the first few chapters, this is certainly not true for the rest.
For me the book contains a lot of new concepts on fields partly new to me, traffic planning, biology, economy, international politics.
The simple models on integration and game theory almost make me run to a computer to start modeling and programming (if I had time).
The philosophical references make it even more interesting!
I certainly would recommend it!
(unless you have a grade in all of the fields above)
Next time you're in a traffic jam, be sure to have it on the seat next to you ;-)
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Hard Work, but worth making the effort
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Like other reviewers, at times I found this really hard work to read - coming as I did from a non-science background. The first few chapters are necessarily tough, as they set a lot of the groundwork and understanding for the rest of the book. I recommend sticking with it, as reading this book offered me a different perspective on 'how things are' to many of the more arts-based ones I've tended to be more influenced by previously. If we're to understand the challenges society faces going forward, then it's important to make the effort and engage with this sort of thinking and rationale - even if I finished the book not entirely convinced by his central arguments.
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Some interesting stuff but almost obscured
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There are some interesting chapters in this book, if nothing particularly groundbreaking, but it is almost spoilt by the first 2 or 3 which are excessively long and dull. I nearly gave up after the 3rd chapter but I'm glad I continued as there are some really interesting bit and pieces after that. The author does have a slightly annoying habit of turning an unimportant anecdote into the link to the next chapter without explaining its significance.
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Hard work for no reward....
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I agree with a lot of the comments... this book is very hard work, boring and rather tedious to read, very little original thinking and ultimately a bit of a waste of time.
I read it to within 50 pages of the end, and i couldn't even finish it. I thought i probably should seeing that i'd made it that far, but quite frankly i thought it would be more useful to make sure the new paint in my bedroom was drying ok....
Avoid this book, unless your insomnia is playing up!
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Science plus politics equals dullsville
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This is a rare, book indeed - one that I couldn't finish! In the last thirty years, I have failed with only perhaps ten books, and this is one of them. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the opening few chapters are an extremely dull and mainly pointless diversion into phase transitions. Ball is concerned with making a point about masses of humans behaving like particles but frankly, even if we do, we don't need pages and pages of O Level physics tedium to describe what is happening in trafiic jams and the markets.
Second, the writing, whilst competent, is dry and dusty in the extreme. I found myself dozing off or my mind wandering much of the time, despite the fact that once it gets going, there are some intresting nuggets to be gleaned. But Ball has made a thick book out of a few points of interest, and that means lots of history of science and lots of references.
Third, Ball cannot keep his rather naive leftish political views out of the argument. If I want politics, I'll read/buy politics. This is supposed to be science though, and bending the story to meet some wishy-washy view of the world is not enlightening. The section on markets is terribly ill-informed and adds almost nothing to what is already known. Ball also makes the common mistake of using US stock markets as a proxy for the capitalist system, which leads to some strained comparisons and conclusions.
There are far more interesting books out there that deal with some of the issues Ball raises. Indeed, The Wisdom of Crowds uses some of the same examples and pieces of data to make more plausible and insightful theories about human behaviour. All in all, impossible to recommend.
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