Chaos: Order That Looks Like Randomness
A system can be entirely deterministic yet utterly unpredictable. Fixed rules, iterated, can produce behavior so sensitive to its starting...
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Homeostasis: Systems That Hold Themselves Steady
A living body keeps its temperature, its chemistry, its balance within narrow bounds against a changing world. This active maintenance...
Feedback: The Loop That Stabilizes and Destabilizes
Let a system's output influence its input and something new arises: it can correct itself or spiral out of control....
Cellular Automata: Complexity From Simple Rules
A grid of cells, each following a trivial local rule, can generate patterns of endless intricacy. From the simplest ingredients...
Universality: One Machine to Run Them All
A single machine, given the description of any other, can imitate it exactly. This universality is not a convenience but...
P Versus NP: The Boundary of the Feasible
Is finding a solution as easy as checking one? For a vast class of problems we can verify an answer...
Computational Irreducibility
Some processes cannot be shortcut. To know their outcome you must run them step by step, for no formula leaps...
Kolmogorov Complexity: The Length of the Shortest Description
The complexity of an object is the length of the shortest program that produces it. A string of a million...
Minimum Description Length
The best theory is the one that, together with the data it explains, can be stated most briefly. This turns...
Occam’s Razor: The Case for Simplicity
Faced with rival explanations that fit equally well, prefer the simpler. This ancient counsel is not mere taste; simpler theories...
