Reviews for Chaos Under Control: The Art and Science of Complexity

The average rating for Chaos Under Control: The Art and Science of Complexity based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-04-16 00:00:00 Desra Fraser I wanted to like this book, but it had too many times where it was frustrating. It teaches you the basics of linear programming (and a bit beyond that), but it is written almost as if it was not meant to always stand alone as a book. My main problem is that in some of the proofs, statements are made with no explanation, that are not trivial to figure out (this is hardly unique for math books, but I still criticize them for it). Usually it is simply stated that something maximizes or minimizes this, and the reasoning as to how to get to that idea is not explained. My other problem is that the algorithm descriptions are often complicated without being clear. I don't mind being precise, but it would be nice to have a couple of worked out examples or a more casual explanation with the algorithm description. There was also a time in the book where new variables appeared without any definition. (When I got near the end of the book, they showed up again and a meaning was given to them. This is poor book writing; either reference the variables occurring later or give a description when they first appear.) I felt as I went through the book that I was having more trouble with vagueness and incomplete explanations than against the ideas (most of them are straightforward linear algebra results with some slight alterations). The fact that it didn't use matrix or summation notation meant that much of the notation is hard to read and even harder to understand without spending a lot of time rewriting it so that the operations are in these clearer forms. All in all, I would not recommend this if it were your first introduction. I felt like the exercises were fairly good, but the presentation of the ideas often was lacking.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-03-05 00:00:00 Susan Brookes Good introduction to discrete mathematics.