Table of Contents

1: From Building Blocks to Computers: Models and Modeling
2: The Game of Life: A Legendary Cellular Automaton
3: Heads or Tails: Probability of an Event
4: Galton's Board: Probability and Statistics
5: Twenty Questions: Probability and Information
6: Snowflakes: The Evolution of Dynamical Systems
7: The Lorenz Butterfly: Deterministic Chaos
8: From Cantor to Mandelbrot: Self-Similarity and Fractals
9: Typing Monkeys: Statistical Linguistics
10: The Bridges of Konigsberg: Graph Theory
11: Prisoner's Dilemma: Game Theory
12: Let the Best Man Win: Genetic Algorithms
13: Computers Can Learn: Neural Networks
14: Unpredictable Individuals: Modeling Society
15: Universal Computer: The Turing Machine
16: Hal, R2D2 and Number 5: Artificial Intelligence
Epilog
Programs
Further Reading
Index

About the Author

Iwo Bialynicki-Birula, Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Warsaw, Poland
Warsaw University PhD in Theoretical Physics 1959
University of Rochester, Research Associate 1959-1961
University of Pittsburgh, Visiting Professor 1969-1971, 1985-1986
University of Frankfurt, Visiting Scholar 1992-1993
University of Ulm, Alexander von Humboldt Award Recipient 1994-1995
Iwona Bialynicka-Birula, Galileo Galilei School, University of Pisa, Italy
MS in Computer Science from Warsaw University 2003

Reviews

`... an intelligent, well-written, well-organized and highly accessible introduction to a broad range of fascinating topics in modern science and mathematical modeling.'
Cosma Shalizi, Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan