Santa Fe, October 1984. Many of the most accomplished creative minds in science—including four Nobel laureates—gather to create an institution unlike any other: where unconventional thinking flourishes and disciplinary boundaries fall away.
From this meeting emerged some of the most generative research programs of the last three decades, including the physics of living systems, the mathematics of society, quantitative archaeology, the nature of mind, fundamentals of complex systems theory—and the implications of all of these on the future. The original vision of a boundary-spanning research center became what Nature has called “that mecca of multidisciplinary complexity studies,” the Santa Fe Institute.
With a new introduction by David Krakauer and Geoffrey West and an afterword by Stephen Wolfram, as well as never-before-published transcripts of the founding workshop discussions, this volume of seminal essays lays the foundation for thirty years of complexity science—and outlines challenges for thirty more.

Emerging Syntheses in Science: Proceedings from the Founding Workshops of the Santa Fe Institute (Archive)

Science & Math

History & Philosophy

Santa Fe Institute of Science

In recent years, the digitization of legal texts and developments in the fields of statistics, computer science, and data analytics have opened entirely new approaches to the study of law. This volume explores the new field of computational legal analysis, an approach marked by its use of legal texts as data. The emphasis herein is work that pushes methodological boundaries, either by using new tools to study longstanding questions within legal studies or by identifying new questions in response to developments in data availability and analysis.
By using the text and underlying data of legal documents as the direct objects of quantitative statistical analysis, Law as Data introduces the legal world to the broad range of computational tools already proving themselves relevant to law scholarship and practice, and highlights the early steps in what promises to be an exciting new approach to studying the law.

Law as Data: Computation, Text, & the Future of Legal Analysis (Seminar)

Computers & Technology

Computer Science

Over the last three decades, the Santa Fe Institute and its network of researchers have been pursuing a revolution in science. Ignoring the boundaries of disciplines and schools and searching for novel fundamental ideas, theories, and practices, this international community integrates the full range of scientific inquiries that will help us to understand and survive on a complex planet. This volume collects essays from the past thirty years of research, in which contributors explain in clear and accessible language many of the deepest challenges and insights of complexity science. Explore the evolution of complex systems science with chapters from Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Kenneth Arrow, as well as numerous pioneering complexity researchers, including John Holland, Brian Arthur, Robert May, Richard Lewontin, Jennifer Dunne, and Geoffrey West.

Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, 1984-2019 (Compass)

This volume is a record of the proceedings of the first InterPlanetary Festival, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in June of 2018 by the Santa Fe Institute, birthplace of complexity science.
An annual free public event, the InterPlanetary Festival combines an exploration of complexity science and technological innovation with a summer festival full of music, film, art, food, drinks, and more.
The Festival is just one aspect of the broader InterPlanetary Project, which is equal parts conference, festival, and research program. The first project of its kind to combine celebration with experimentation, and conversation with analysis, the InterPlanetary Project seeks nothing less than a whole-planet project--beyond borders, beyond politics, beyond economics--to activate the collective intelligence of our first planet: Earth.

InterPlanetary Transmissions: Genesis: Proceedings of the Santa Fe Institute's First InterPlanetary Festival (Compass)

Astronomy & Space Science

The specter of information is haunting sciences. With these words, Wojciech H. Zurek invited fellow scientists to attend the 1989 Santa Fe Institute workshop on which this proceedings volume is based. Thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, the quantum theory of measurement, the physics of computation, dynamical systems, molecular biology, and computer science-information remains central to the 32 essays collected in this new edition of Complexity, Entropy & the Physics of Information.\nLike the original meeting, this two-volume reprint explores the connections between quantum and classical physics, information and its transfer, computation, and their significance for the formulation of physical theories. A newly written introduction from attendee Seth Lloyd contextualizes the significance of this record of a meeting that marked the intersection of information, physics, complexity, and computation.

Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Volume I)

Physics

Complexity, Entropy & the Physics of Information (Volume II)

InterPlanetary Transmissions: Proceedings of the Santa Fe Institute's Second InterPlanetary Festival

COVID-19 is the virus that proved the fragility of the world. It took only the simplest form of life to shake the connectivity and dependency of society. This book is a real-time record and recommendation from a community of complexity scientists reacting to the pandemic. Through nontechnical articles, interviews, and discussions spanning the early days of the pandemic through the fall of 2021, researchers seek ways to stay responsive to complexity when every force conspires toward simplicity. The Complex Alternative encompasses immunology, epidemiology, psychology, inequality, and collapse. It is an effort to preserve perspective at a time when partiality seeks dominion. Edited by David C. Krakauer and Geoffrey West, this book features the thoughts of more than sixty members of the Santa Fe Institute's research community on the future of complexity science and the broader significance of science in the twenty-first century.

The Complex Alternative: Complexity Scientists on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Technology

The Quark & the Jaguar

Biographies & Memoirs

GELL-MANN, MURRAY

Professionals & Academics

Strange Beauty

Johnson,George

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