Spatial Modelling of the Terrestrial Environment (Kelly/Spatial Modelling of the Terrestrial Environment) || Spatial Modelling of the Terrestrial Environment: The Coupling of Remote Sensing with Spatial Models

✍ Scribed by Kelly, Richard E.J.; Drake, Nicholas A.; Barr, Stuart L.

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 62 KB
• Edition: 1
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 0470843489
• DOI: 10.1002/0470094001.ch1

✦ Synopsis

The creation of silicon surrogates of real-world complex systems allows us to perform controlled, repeatable experiments on the real McCoy. So, in this sense complex system theorists are much in the same position that physicists were in the time of Galileo, who was responsible for ushering in the idea of such experimentation on simple systems. It was Galileo's efforts that paved the way for Newton's development of a theory of such processes. Unfortunately, complex systems are still awaiting their Newton. But with our new found ability to create worlds for all occasions inside the computer, we can play myriad sorts of what-if games with genuine complex systems' (Casti, 1997).