Day 11

This morning I read the Kindle free chapter of "Complexity Explained" by Peter Erdi. This was pretty interesting. It's kind of an easy to read, not-overly-mathematical, intro to the concept of complex systems. I think it's one of those Springer "not quite a full on book yet, but on the way" manuscripts, as there are a fair few grammatical issues in the text. But all in all, quite readable - I may add it to my Christmas list. It's $55 for kindle version or $64 for the softcover. Strangely - it's more on bookdepository... :(

This got me thinking about the Applied Mathematical Modelling honours unit that (at this stage) I am teaching next year, semester 2. I'm thinking that we might (the class and I) do a bit of reading around the uses of mathematics in reality (such as in complex systems etc) with some very new books in the area...I'll probably end up buying them myself or getting the library to get them in. Perhaps even do some book review writing (like the reviews that appear in journals). I'm also thinking of getting some invited speakers in to talk about their view on what Applied Mathematics means.

I'm also working with Professor John Frazer on starting a seminar series on "Complexity"...tentatively our first seminar will be on Dec 3 (location to be determined) in the afternoon, featuring Professor Simon Kaplan and followed by discussions among the group. This should be really interesting too - I've not seen Simon speak about academic research things before but understand he is great to listen to. John Frazer is quite cool (academically I mean :P ) I think. He's a Professor of Design Science and a pioneer of the use of computer technologies in architecture and design. He has lead some truly awesome research (inlcuding that described in the book at An Evolutionary Architecture) and has recently been working on using cellular automata-like programs to design/grow buildings. Cool.