Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds

by Mitchel Resnick

Book Overview

Does every group have a leader? Does every pattern have a central cause? Most people tend to think so. Increasingly, decentralized models are being chosen for the organizations and technologies they construct in the world, and for the theories they construct about the world. But even as ideas about decentralization spread throughout the culture, there is a deep-seated resistance to them. This text examines how and why this is so and describes innovative...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262181622
• ISBN13: 9780262181624
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
• Length: 163 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The arcane made accessible

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.

Fascinating little big book.

If you're illiterate about this theme, learn easy, and pick up a new point of view - better say many points. And a new way of thinking too. If you're a knower play with these models, join the established community for more answers, and apply these models to real situations. A very helpful mate for think tanks, marketing execs as me, engineers, biologists, and anybody who need new responses for old problems. A funny, serious, and very very illustrative reading in few pages!.

Experimental complexiry for everyone

When Papert created the LOGO computer language, it was with the idea of creating a tool simple enough for children to use that could nontheless teach them very power notions about algorithms and the power of computing. With Star LOGO, Mitchell Resnick has created a equally simple, yet unbelievably powerful tool that can be used to experiment with ideas of complexity."Termites..." is about how complex behaviors can arise from very simple systems, and to that end Resnick provides a number of case histories and simple programs that demonstrate how conceptually complex systems can be simulated using only a few rules. Phenomena as diverse as the movement of traffic james, pile making by termites and the migration of slime molds can all be simulated in Star LOGO with very a few assumtions. But Resnick's programs aren't just simulations; they're models of the real underlying processes that govern these complex phenomena. Resnick hasn't just created a clever program; he's provided a wonderful tool for exploring complexity, and found a way of translating complexity into something a child can understand- while still fascinating to an adult.

It opens up new worlds, where all is different and the same.

If you ever felt like there has to be some other explanation to the way things are organized. If you ever felt like the current societal scheme makes no sense, with leaders and followers. If you ever had any of these thoughts, but never quite could figure out how to explain it... this book will. Attacking SMP and Massively Parallel Processing from a totally new approach, with no complex jiberish, jargon, or mathemathical formulas, Mitchell Resnick manages to explain all these almost flawlessly. He has done extensive research and work in this subject, and he can really make sense out of it. It opened my eyes to see things from a different perspective. It explained many things that I felt, but could not describe. It leaves you wondering "What if", as well as looking at things from a different perspective. In one word: "Extraordinary"