Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple)

Frustrated by the traffic on narrow bridges? Stunned by the number of buttons on a remote control? Saddened by the lack of basic medical care in the developing world? Kluger (Splendid Solutions ) makes the modern world comprehensible, analyzing social and technological systems to reveal that “things that seem complicated can be preposterously simple; things that seem simple can be dizzyingly complex.” He compares cells to cities to stock markets, renders quarks and fractals accessible and draws parallels between Wal-Mart and AIDS clinics in Tanzania. Although Kluger is prone to hyperbole, his astonishing discoveries require no exaggeration: the book describes how even the most technologically advanced manufacturing plant is infinitely simpler than a humble houseplant “with its microhydraulics and fine-tuned metabolism and dense schematic of nucleic acids”—and baseball fans will be dismayed to discover that football is, in fact, the more complex of the two games: “the possible number of starting configurations before the play even begins is... 31.4 billion.” Kluger’s findings are likely to incite controversy, confirming his contention that explaining simplicity and complexity is never as straightforward as it seems. (June)