How Nature Works

The Science of Self-Organized Criticality

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by Per Bak

Springer-Verlag, New York

Due/Published May 1999, 223 pages, paper

ISBN 038798738x

In How Nature Works Bak argues that self-organized criticality, the spontaneous development of systems to a critical state, is the key to such a principle. While many theories have been proposed to describe individual complex systems, self-organized criticality is the first general theory of complex systems with a firm mathematical basis.

How Nature Works, written by the discoverer of self-organized criticality, describes for general readers a concept of increasing importance. Few books offer such a compelling glimpse into the science of the future as this one.

Per Bak is a professor in the Physics Department of Brookhaven National Laboratory. He has published over 150 papers, including articles in Scientific American and New Scientist.