Excerpt

The Santa Fe Institute, as a key element in its founding activities, sponsored two workshops on “Emerging Syntheses in Science,” which took place on October 5–6 and November 10–11, 1984. Each workshop began with a description by Murray Gell-Mann of the concept of the Institute. Subsequent speakers described aspects of emerging syntheses which might prove relevant to the future development of the In­stitute and George Cowan described some of the initial steps which are being taken to create the Institute. In the course of the talks, and discussions which ensued, a number of possible future directions for the Institute were explored. Networks, which might tie together researchers in a newly emerging synthesis, using both tra­ditional and innovative forms of communication, ranging from workshops and the exchange of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to computer links, emerged as one of the initial foci of the Institute activity.

There was unanimous agreement among the participants that Professor Gell-Mann’s keynote address and the ensuing talks were of such high quality and general interest that it would be highly desirable to publish these for broader distribution. I agreed to serve as editor of the proceedings and chose an informal format for this volume as a way of making the proceedings rapidly available at modest cost. To convey the character of the workshops, contributors were encouraged, in writing up their talks, to follow the same kind of informal approach which characterized their presentations. The grouping of the talks is intended to reflect some of the many connections between apparently different problems which became evident during the workshops. For those speakers who were not able to contribute a manuscript, brief summaries of their remarks are appended.

It gives me pleasure, on behalf of the board of trustees of the Santa Fe Institute, to thank the contributors to this volume for their rapid response to my pleas for manuscripts, and to thank the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation for their financial support, which has made possible both the workshops and the publication of this volume. Special thanks go to Karie Friedman and Ronda Butler-Villa for their assistance in editing this volume, and to Françoise Ulam for her translation of the article by Dr. Schützenberger.

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