The Regular and the Random

Nearly everything we encounter exhibits regularities along with random or incidental features. All around us we find superpositions of law and chance—or signal and noise, as in the case of music and static on the radio. In The Regular and the Random, the world's most distinguished living physicist discusses these contrasts as they apply to everything from the universe as a whole to living organisms and human culture, with reference to topics that include bird song, barbarian coinages, codes and ciphers, abstract images in the visual arts, and the evolution of human languages. Continuing the dazzling explorations of the physical world that earned him the Noble Prize in 1969, Gell-Mann examines the meanings and relevance of concepts such as complexity, entropy, and individuality and present examples of regularities like self-similarity—or "scaling"—that are widespread in physical and biological science and in human affairs.