This text will be replaced by the correThis book is aimed to a broad audience of researchers and students who are interested in questions of structure formation in complex systems in nature and society. When we think of synergetics, impressive images of complex structures immediately come to mind. Such images serve us as starting point and guide for understanding structure formation in chemical, biological, physical, geological, and social systems. Many fascinating pictures of new experimental results illustrate the imagery of synergetics and at the same time enable precise statements about the underlying laws based on precise and discussed measurements. In this way, for example, the famous Runge pictures are accessible to a physico-chemical description, and it turns out that the well-known disintegration of the beer foam satisfies a consecutive kinetics with feedback. The modeling by means of cellular automata and iterated function systems enables us to study the cooperative character of pattern formation on sea shells on the one hand but also to show that creativity is a cooperative effect.ct back cover text / information text as soon as we get it.

Synergetics, according to E. J. Applewhite, was Fuller's name for the geometry he advanced based on the patterns of energy that he saw in nature. For Fuller, geometry was a laboratory science with the touch and feel of physical models--not rules out of a textbook. It gains its validity not from classic abstractions but from the results of individual physical experience. Description by the Buckminster Fuller Institute, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller

In a broad sense Design Science is the grammar of a language of images rather than of words. Modern communication techniques enable us to transmit and reconstitute images without the need of knowing a specific verbal sequential language such as the Morse code or Hungarian. International traffic signs use international image symbols which are not specific to any particular verbal language. An image language differs from a verbal one in that the latter uses a linear string of symbols, whereas the former is multidimensional. Architectural renderings commonly show projections onto three mutually perpendicular planes, or consist of cross sections at differ ent altitudes representing a stack of floor plans. Such renderings make it difficult to imagine buildings containing ramps and other features which disguise the separation between floors; consequently, they limit the creativity of the architect. Analogously, we tend to analyze natural structures as if nature had used similar stacked renderings, rather than, for instance, a system of packed spheres, with the result that we fail to perceive the system of organization determining the form of such structures.

Requiring only two non-impact, 12-minute workouts a day, here is a revolutionary new fitness plan that is safe and effective. Nine years of research have created a unique system that activates one's natural synergy, the harmony of mind, body and spirit. Illustrated.

Synergetics 2 contains a ninety-page index to both volumes. They comprise a single work with the sequence of paragraphs numbered to dovetail in a single integrated narrative. They should eventually be published as a single work eliminating the artificial division into two volumes resulting from the chronology of their composition. E. J. Applewhite, courtesy of the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller

This volume focuses on the modeling of cognition, and brings together contributions from psychologists and researchers in the field of cognitive science. The shared platform of this work is to advocate a dynamical systems approach to cognition. Several aspects of this approach are considered here: chaos theory, artificial intelligence and Alfie models, catastrophe theory and, most importantly, self-organization theory or synergetics. The application of nonlinear systems theory to cognitive science in general, and to cognitive psychology in particular, is a growing field that has gained further momentum thanks to new contributions from the science of robotics. The recent development in cognitive science towards an account of embodiment, together with the general approach of complexity theory and dynamics, will have a major impact on our psychological understanding of reasoning, thinking and behavior.