Modeling Reality: How Computers Mirror Life

1. From Building Blocks to Computers: Models and Modeling 2. The Game of Life: A Legendary Cellular Automaton 3. Heads or Tails: Probability of an Event 4. Galton's Board: Probability and Statistics 5. Twenty Questions: Probability and Information 6. Snowflakes: The Evolution of Dynamical Systems 7. The Lorenz Butterfly: Deterministic Chaos 8. From Cantor to Mandelbrot: Self-Similarity and Fractals 9. Typing Monkeys: Statistical Linguistics 10. The Bridges of Konigsberg: Graph Theory 11. Prisoner's Dilemma: Game Theory 12. Let the Best Man Win: Genetic Algorithms 13. Computers Can Learn: Neural Networks 14. Unpredictable Individuals: Modeling Society 15. Universal Computer: The Turing Machine 16. Hal, R2D2 and Number 5: Artificial Intelligence Epilog Programs Further Reading Index