Unfortunately, I've always had this visceral, "dictionary" autonomic
response to the word "seminal":
Main Entry: *sem·i·nal*
<javascript:popWin('/cgi-bin/audio.pl?semina01.wav=seminal')>
Pronunciation: 'se-m&-n&l
Function: *adjective*
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin *seminalis,* from *semin-, semen* seed
-- more at SEMEN <http://webster.com/dictionary/semen>
*1* *:* of, relating to, or consisting of seed or semen
*2* *:* containing or contributing the seeds of later development *:
*
Now, I realize that you probably were focussed on the second meaning of the
word, Owen, yet...
Perhaps had you used the word "significant", or "important", or, "not
complete garbage-class academic mental exhibititionist garbage"...
Alas, my train of thought is now irretrievably derailed.
--
Doug Roberts, RTI International
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell
--Doug
On 6/15/07, Owen Densmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Several of us have been attending the SFI Summer School this year.
One thing that has stood out for me is that there are very few
appropriate texts on the detailed, seminal ideas within complexity.
Either the books are "popular" or they are technical/formal enough,
but without broad view of complexity itself. Indeed, they may be
*too* advanced in their speciality for the broad use complexity
wishes to make.
One example today was the intersection of computational theory and
statistical mechanics given by Cris Moore:
A Tale of Two Cultures: Phase Transitions in
Physics and Computer Science
Here are the slides: http://www.santafe.edu/~moore/Oxford.pdf
You'd be unlikely to find a book bridging algorithms, computational
complexity, and statistical mechanics.
This leads me to believe that seminal papers are likely to be a good
solution for bridging the various cultures, hopefully with some that
*do* bridge gaps between specialties.
Sooo -- gentle reader -- this brings me to a request: I'd like to
start a collection of seminal papers who's goal is to bridge the gap
between popular books and over-specialized texts, which are formal
enough to be useful for multi-discipline complexity work. This may
be daft, but I think not.
As an example, I'd say Shannon's 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of
Communication would be good.
-- Owen
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
