The Info Mesa: Science, Business, and New Age Alchemy on the Santa Fe Plateau

by Ed Regis

Book Overview

How did a small southwest town transform itself into a hotbed of research science, advanced technology, and money? Tracking key figures in Santa Fe's emerging industries, Ed Regis explains how entrepreneurial scientists are using complexity theory and powerful, experimental computer programs to create practical--and profitable--applications. Their efforts to convert vast, diverse data, whether chemical or biological or computational, into useful information...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393021238
• ISBN13: 9780393021233
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Well Written and Researched Complexity and Santa Fe Hype

This is a well researched, well written, interesting book about scientists in Santa Fe developing entrepreneurial start-ups based on complexity science. The science and business combination is fun and wide ranging. It belongs to a genre of books about the Santa Fe Institute, of which Michael Waldrop's Complexity is one of the earliest and best. Many of the characters are the same in both books. My criticism of the Info Mesa is that much of it reads like publicity hype. It overstates the scientific accomplishments of the Santa Fe Institute and the importance of complexity research. It overstates the health of the tech business climate in Santa Fe. It romanticizes the people who work at SFI. It romanticizes the town in which they work. The descriptions of Santa Fe are so over the top as to be laughable to those of us who live here. Not even our tourist brochures hype Santa Fe so well. So, in conclusion, the Info Mesa's story isn't really so. All of you should just stay home, and leave Santa Fe to those of us who got here before you. ;-)