No label defined (Q4023486)

This book could have been a good introduction to a number of diverse yet connected areas of nonlinear science and self-organization, if the authors had taken the time and care to expand on what in this form seems to be just a collection of hastily prepared lecture handouts. The topics touched upon range from basic descriptions of the analysis of nonlinear systems (both discrete and continuous) to synergetics, evolution processes, stochastic behavior, self-reproduction, cellular automata, spin glasses, and neural networks. Only in a few cases does the reader get a complete presentation of the topic under discussion. These presentations themselves are rather erratic: the authors have a preference for extensively discussing the obvious, whereas difficult and important points are dealt with rather cursorily. The figures seem to be produced by a dot-matrix printer with a worn-out ribbon, the short index is incomplete and sometimes wrong, and, all in all, this is a book better to be avoided.