» Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)

Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems) Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: great presentation of the concepts of decentralization
Comment: This book presents the concepts of decentralization using the StarLogo programming language. Unfortunately, the code examples are for a early version of StarLogo and will not work correctly with current versions of this programming language. I still think it is a great book for learning about the paradigm shift from centralized thinking to decentralized thinking. The author seems to think that much of nature can be understood as decentralized systems rather than as top down centralized systems. While I am sure this approach does not work for everything, I think it is useful to be knowledgeable of this way of thinking. I highly recommend this book for gaining the a fore mentioned perspective.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Is a good start but needs more...
Comment: Book needs some more content, it gives a good first level intro but does not develop it into more interesting/advanced things.

50% of the book is a 'sales' pitch for StarLogo.

If you have experience with writing code for simulations this book is a bit light technically.

Still has some interesting ideas in it.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The arcane made accessible
Comment: On the surface, the book seems focused on computers and even video games. This makes the activities appealing for middle and high school students. However, the ideas in this book are actually relevant to two entirely different fields: 1) genetics, and 2) artificial intelligence. Both these fields have at their centers the concept of complexity arising out of simplicity. Students who work their way though the activites in this book will find that Dr. Resnick offers a window into a deep mathematical world that has applications far beyond computers and games.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Starting Point in Agent based Modelling
Comment: Mitchel Resnick shares a lovely sense of wonder, discovery and fascination in this slim, easily read volume about agent based modelling. Using micro-worlds (termites, ants and other modelling metaphors) Resnick shows us how collective behaviours are more than a simple sum of the parts - and through his experiments using StarLogo programming he shows the nature of emergent behaviours that come through decentralised thinking.

His reading list is a great starting point for anyone fascinated by Complexity and Agent Based Modelling, and so too is his elegant list of guiding heuristics that he has learned through toying with various ants, termites, forest fires and traffic jams.

- Positive feedback (in models) often plays a vital role.
- Randomness can help create order. Random isn't always chaotic.
- A Flock is not a big bird. The behaviour of groups should not be confused with the behaviour of individuals.
- A traffic jam is not just a collection of cars. Emergent objects have an ever-changing composition.
- The hills are alive. Don't just focus on the individual objects - look also at their environment.

This volume helped our research team design approach agent-based modelling, and put us in touch with other avenues of decentralised thinking: for example Network Theory. Best of all, Resnick helped us lighten-up. This book (and its subject matter) has profound ideas, but never loses a delicious sense of awe. Recommended.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: interesting, but describes an old version of the software
Comment: This is a book describing the research of a team at MIT using a version of the educational language "Logo". Running in a simple graphical environment which supports multiple parallel operation of code in the same shared space. Write a few lines of code for an "ant", then let 1000 of them loose. The current version of this "StarLogo" system is written in Java, and available as a free download for anyone to play with.

The use of Logo is both a strength and a weakness of the approach. The strength is that the code is concise and easy to understand. The weakness is that there is only one source of the software, and anyone wishing to try it is limited to the available download. This would not be such a limitation if the book described the same version, but unfortunately things have moved on a lot since the book was written, and few (if any) of the examples will work without alteration.

As well as the development of the StarLogo system, the book covers experiments in emergent behaviour. Typical sections include how parameter and environment changes can affect the growth and development of simulated ant colonies, and a theoretical basis for those "phantom traffic jams" we have all experienced.

This book is certainly interesting if you are interested in developing parallel software simulations, or if you are interested in marginal computer languages, but don't expect the code to work without effort.

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