Tempos in Science and Nature: Structures, Relations, and Complexity [Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 879]

The complexity of nature has made it necessary to develop concepts and theories that have little in common with the reductionist and mechanical approach that has dominated scientific thought for two centuries. Science has so far not been able to unravel the molecular and macroscopic complexity of natural phenomena, with their nonlinear and irreversible patterns. The authors of Tempos in Science and Nature take this problem as a point of departure in a wide-ranging investigation that brings together experts from both the humanities and the sciences, interweaving the world of the arts with the world of natural laws and theories.

The contributors include outstanding scientists in physics, physical chemistry, evolutionary biology, and mathematical ecology as well as scholars of philosophy, comparative literature, and cognitive science. Ranging from superstring theory to Biblical theology, from reflections on "the arrow of time" to the question of suspended life in biological systems, the authors focus on role of complexity theory in providing a new common ground between the sciences and humanities. They also discuss complex molecular behavior and structure, and ecological and environmental modeling.

Claudio Rossi, Simone Bastianoni, Alessandro Donati, and Nadia Marchettini are members of the faculty in the department of chemical and biosystems sciences at the University of Siena, Italy.