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Roger L. Costello wrote: >I think that the distinction between complication and complexity is a >useful one. I welcome your suggestions on a better definition of the two >terms (or even different terms). > > You might want to check out the (immensely readable) work by Chaitin on complexity [1]. He basically boils pretty much everything down to minimum LOC: [[ The basic idea of algorithmic information theory (AIT) is that a scientific theory is a computer program, and the smaller, the more concise the program is, the better the theory!" ]] One nice idea I came across somewhere in his stuff went something like - new theories always seem really complicated and difficult when first expressed, but later someone usually comes along and expresses the theory in a more suitable language and it all appears simple, even obvious. "Elegant" might be another good word to add to your list. Cheers, Danny. [1] http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/ -- Raw http://dannyayers.com
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