Introduction to Artificial Life

"ADAMI'S BOOK IS EXTRAORDINARILY IMPORTANT. It represents a true landmark in the new field of Artificial Life, and will find a wide readership, ranging from university students to professional researchers." - Prof. Dr. Heinz G. Schuster, University of Kiel, Germany Author of Deterministic Chaos: An Introduction [from the back cover]

This is the ONLY book I have seen which brings together all the many and various strands which are essential to the exciting new subjects arising currently around the question: What is Life? It is a stunning tour de force of the basic knowledge you need to possess to work in the areas of A-life or biological complexity.I should warn: it's not a book I could read through in an afternoon, by any means. At times the descriptions are a little cryptic, so that I had to work at understanding what was being said. But the effort I had to put in was always rewarded with greater understanding. Thank you, Chris Adami.

Adami demonstrates how to use the tools of artificial life to conduct pure scientific research. A very clear and readable textbook on the subject, Adami makes me want to go back to graduate school. Here is a chance to take an introductory course in an exciting field of research that is truely table-top science. I loved the book and I didn't even use the CD and software that came with it.

Adami's book is the first comprehensive review of issues pertinent to the field of artificial life. The book is a textbook based on his lectures at CalTech. Some of the topics are a bit brief (Turing machines are summarized in four pages) but that is to be expected for a book whose goal is to integrate concepts from the fields of biology, chemistry, statistics, computer science, information science, etc. I found the book fascinating and Chris includes a CD-rom and several chapters on the Avida simulation developed at CalTech. There are numerous references and problems at the end of each chapter.