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math_ematiks's review against another edition
Stay tuned for my thoughts ladies and gents, this made me rethink something I thought I absolutely despised
nickfourtimes's review against another edition
3.0
''The U.S. economist Herbert Simon points out that an absence of central planning does not necessarily mean that all cities are poorly 'designed.' On the contrary, they are (or at any rate, they once were) often remarkably effective in arranging for goods to be transported, for land to be apportioned between residential, business, and manufacturing districts, and for a lot of activity to be fitted into a small area: 'I retain vivid memories of the astonishment and disbelief expressed by the architecture students to whom I taught urban land economics many years ago when I pointed to medieval cities as marvelously patterned systems that had mostly just 'grown' in response to myriads of individual human decisions. To my students a pattern implied a planner in whose mind it had been conceived and by whose hand it had been implemented. The idea that a city could acquire its pattern as naturally as a snowflake was foreign to them. They reacted to it as many Christian fundamentalists responded to Darwin: no design without a Designer!'''
davidcuen's review against another edition
4.0
It’s not easy to try to write about science in an accessible way that it’s both simple and rigorous but the author somehow manages to do it. On top of that he tries to carry out some of the learnings from science into social sciences and leave us with more open questions. It never answers fully why one thing leads to another in society but I don’t think that was the intention. It does leave us with a bunch of things to think about on how we are influenced by one another. Even though it took me time to get through it all it was with the investment.
davidr's review against another edition
4.0
This book is about applying the methods of physics and mathematics to sociology. There are no equations in this book, and it is easy to follow--but the discussion is unnecessarily verbose as a result. Some equations could have kept the discussion more concise, and perhaps easier to understand, also.
The book introduces some of the concepts of statistical thermodynamics and phase transitions. The most interesting aspect of this book is the analogies between many-particle interactions and the "tipping points" that occur in human affairs. Whereas Malcolm Gladwell's [b:The Tipping Point|2612|The Tipping Point|Malcolm Gladwell|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41iEG6VDU9L._SL75_.jpg|2124255] contains many interesting examples of tipping points, this book by Philip Ball helps to explain better why they happen. He shows that whereas random phenomena often take on a Gaussian distribution, many-particle interactions take on a power law distribution. He applies these concepts to a wide array of interesting social phenomena, including crowds leaving a room, city expansion and segregation, traffic flow, the stock market, the growth and shrinking of companies, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and politics and voting.
The book begins and ends with multiple chapters about political philosophy. Maybe a single chapter would have been desirable, but I thought it was way too much, especially considering that the main theme of the books was about applying quantitative methods to sociology.
The book introduces some of the concepts of statistical thermodynamics and phase transitions. The most interesting aspect of this book is the analogies between many-particle interactions and the "tipping points" that occur in human affairs. Whereas Malcolm Gladwell's [b:The Tipping Point|2612|The Tipping Point|Malcolm Gladwell|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41iEG6VDU9L._SL75_.jpg|2124255] contains many interesting examples of tipping points, this book by Philip Ball helps to explain better why they happen. He shows that whereas random phenomena often take on a Gaussian distribution, many-particle interactions take on a power law distribution. He applies these concepts to a wide array of interesting social phenomena, including crowds leaving a room, city expansion and segregation, traffic flow, the stock market, the growth and shrinking of companies, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and politics and voting.
The book begins and ends with multiple chapters about political philosophy. Maybe a single chapter would have been desirable, but I thought it was way too much, especially considering that the main theme of the books was about applying quantitative methods to sociology.
mina_m's review against another edition
2.0
I finally finished this. I must admit that I skimmed certain parts and skipped others, but I forced myself to read the majority of the book. Some parts were genuinely interesting: I enjoyed the degrees of separation chapter and the last one as well. Sadly, what I'm left with is a really long book that didn't really tell me much besides referencing various scientific studies and experiments. Maybe I would have liked it better if I had taken science past grade 11. Maybe not.
beholderess's review
5.0
As a student (not a very good one, arguably :) of social sciences, I've been more than a little disturbed by what I've seen as trying to "prescribe" how people "must" behave using statistical inferences. This book finally made me understand that social science has nothing to do with prescription, or even with figuring out what is going on in individual human minds. Rather, there are two questions: a) How people tend to behave in certain circumstances b) If they behave that way, what happens.
Also, it sparked my interest in using models to study behaviour.
The last, but not the least, it is quite easy and entertaining to read - popular science at it's finest.
Also, it sparked my interest in using models to study behaviour.
The last, but not the least, it is quite easy and entertaining to read - popular science at it's finest.
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