Complexity (M. Mitchell Waldrop)

M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (1992).

Why it’s on the list: Waldrop’s account of the founding of the Santa Fe Institute — which belongs on this list less for the science than as a case study in deliberately building an institution with no departments, to see whether that changes what gets discovered.

Where I saw it: In the replies to Sarah Guo’s March 22, 2025 question on X — “is there a book / essay about environments that best support scientific discovery? Not about specifically bell labs, cavendish, xerox parc, los alamos - but why these places were so productive?” Kyle saved the link and reconstructed the full reply-thread list on 2026-09-17; the whole recovered list is on Is There a Book… (tweet).

Metadata checked: Open Library (1992; 380 pages).

Connections

• Complexity — the concept page; this card is the book, disambiguated.
• Scientific Research — SFI as an institutional experiment, which is the thread’s actual question.
• The Dream Machine — same author, same interest in the funder-and-institution layer.

Not yet read.