Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams
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From Complex Adaptive Systems

Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams

Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds

By Mitchel Resnick

A Bradford Book

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Summary

How does a bird flock keep its movements so graceful and synchronized? Most people assume that the bird in front leads and the others follow. In fact, bird flocks don't have leaders: they are organized without an organizer, coordinated without a coordinator. And a surprising number of other systems, from termite colonies to traffic jams to economic systems, work the same decentralized way. Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams describes innovative new computational tools that can qhelp people (even young children) explore the workings of such systems—and help them move beyond the centralized mindset.

Hardcover

Out of Print ISBN: 9780262181624 184 pp. | 9 in x 6 in

Paperback

$30.00 S ISBN: 9780262680936 184 pp. | 9 in x 6 in

Authors

Mitchel Resnick

Mitchel Resnick, an expert in educational technologies, is Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab. He has worked closely with the LEGO toy company for thirty years, collaborating with them on such innovative projects as the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits, and he holds the LEGO endowed chair at MIT. He leads the team developing the Scratch programming software and online community, and he is cofounder of the Computer Clubhouse project, a network of after-school learning centers for youth from low-income communities.

Endorsements

  • Mitchel Resnick's book is one of the very few in the field ofcomputing with an interdisciplinary discourse that can reach beyondthe technical community to philsophers, psychologists, and historiansand sociologists of science.

    Sherry Turkle

    Professor, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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