Literate Scientist

These two volumes I bought a few years ago, started reading the first chapter and then other books got reading priority, for example, Rosen’s “Life Itself”. A few weeks ago I picked up the first volume again and started reading from the beginning. I’m was really amazed how I understand it better after reading Rosen’s books. These volumes are highly recommended to learn about models of reality and mathematical modeling itself. The first chapter that discusses the relationship of models to observation is awesome. The book requires an undergraduate engineering level of mathematics: linear algebra, calculus and a bit of mathematical analysis. You will also learn about catastrophe-theoretic models, chaos, cellular automata, geometry of human affairs, patterns, fractals, and many other things. There is even a discussion about controversies in catastrophe theory involving Rene Thom. I think the first volume of this book set is a prerequisite reading before starting with classic Structural Stability And Morphogenesis.

Reality Rules, 2 Volume Set

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

OpenTask plans to publish the extended and edited version of this blog as a book:

Literate Scientists and Their Books: An Independent Guide to Understanding Reality (ISBN: 978-1906717520)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I admit Semiotics is the big gap in my education which mostly lies in natural and computer sciences. I know less about social sciences and try to fill various gaps. The reason why I came upon this discipline is that I’m interested in signs and their interpretations, especially their relation to various structures. I started reading this book in September and almost read 1/3rd of it during my flight to Russia via Zurich.

Semiotics: The Basics

As a by-product of reading I was able to provide a kind of theoretical explanation for the phenomenon of bugtations:

Bugtations: a semiotic approach

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -