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

Why are the instruction manuals for cell phones incomprehensible? Why is a truck driver's job as hard as a CEO's? How can 10% of every medical dollar cure 90% of the world's disease? Complexity is a slippery idea. Things that seem complicated can be astoundingly simple; things that seem simple can be dizzyingly complex. These and other paradoxes are driving a whole new science —simplexity— that is redefining how we look at the world and using that new view to improve our lives. Through the lens of this surprising new science, the world becomes a delicate place filled with predictable patterns, but they're patterns we often fail to see as we're time and again fooled by our instincts, by our fear, by the size of things, even by their beauty.

In Simplexity, Jeffrey Kluger shows how a drinking straw can save thousands of lives; how investors behave like atoms; and how physics drives jazz. As simplexity moves from the research lab into popular consciousness it will...

Elizabeth L. Winter - Library Journal

Time magazine writer Kluger (Splendid Solution) here introduces us to the concept of simplexity-the notion that seemingly complex things can be more simple than they appear and that, alternately, seemingly simple things can be more complex than they appear. Like Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, he uses a single idea to offer readers a peek inside a wide variety of familiar occurrences, taking us on a fascinating journey. Kluger introduces readers to the relatively new field of complexity science, drawing examples from current projects of the Santa Fe Institute, the interdisciplinary scientific research center founded by Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann. Following the work of this and other scientists, he explains the complexity and simplicity of phenomena such as why it takes so long for a group of people to leave a burning building, why we're more likely to worry about things that probably won't kill us than about the things that probably will, and why the operating systems in our cell phones are so difficult to master. Though the chapters are only loosely held together, this book is sure to appeal to a broad audience. Recommended for public libraries.

Jeffrey Kluger is a senior editor and writer for Time magazine. With astronaut Jim Lovell, he wrote Apollo 13, on which the 1995 movie was based. His other books include the critically acclaimed Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio. Kluger lives in New York City with his wife and daughters.