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Title details for The Smart Swarm by Peter Miller - Available

The Smart Swarm

How Understanding Flocks, Schools, and Colonies Can Make Us Better at Communicating, Decision Making, and Getting Things Done

by Peter Miller
Sean Pratt
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
In a world where speed and flexibility are valued more than ever, leaders from the corporate boardroom to the military are looking for answers from seemingly unlikely experts—the ones in the grass, in the air, in the lakes, and in the woods. In this innovative audio book, veteran National Geographic editor Peter Miller explains the basic principles of smart swarms— self-organization, diversity of knowledge, indirect collaboration, and adaptive mimicking—to show how swarm species such as ants, bees, and fish can teach us to tackle some of the most complex conundrums in business, politics, and technology.
By studying ant colonies' simple governing rules, computer scientists have written programs to streamline factory processes, telephone networks, and truck routes. Termites have inspired climate control solutions, and the U.S. military is developing a team of robots that behaves like a school of fish. Groups in nature are the real specialists because they've evolved strategies over millions of years to cope with uncertainty, complexity, and change—the same challenges that make our lives and businesses difficult today.
Leading scientists in fields from biology to physics, social psychology, and business management are all studying smart swarms to unlock their secrets, and Peter Miller takes us on a lively tour to show us how we can, too.
A fascinating journey from the critter to the corporation, The Smart Swarm is an eye-opening look at small-scale phenomena with big implications for us all.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    December 17, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781469002262
      • File size: 250788 KB
      • Duration: 08:42:28

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 1, 2010
      Insects are social creatures, perhaps even more social—in the strict scientific sense—than humans since they lack such socially obstructing attributes as ego, personality, and opinion. Miller, senior editor at National Geographic
      , examines hives, mounds, colonies, and swarms, whose complex systems of engagement and collective decision making have catalyzed innovations in engineering and can suggest solutions to such problems as climate change. The sophisticated system of decentralized interdependence exhibited by termites invites a lesson on how to respond to emergencies, while the chemical-based communications among African ants helped officials at Southwest Airlines define their seating policy. Insects, birds, and fish variously demonstrate the plausibility and success of disorganization leading to self-organization and leaderless processes. Adding understanding to the dark side of group dynamics and, inevitably, mob behavior is the study of locusts, innocuous until they become part of a crowd. Miller informs, engages, entertains, and even surprises in this thought-provoking study of problem making and problem solving, and through the comparison of human and insect scenarios, shows how social cues and signals can either bring about social cooperation or destruction.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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