Primers Purpose

These primers provide a set of well-focused, accessible, high quality introductions to key topics in complex systems. Each primer is part of a common series "SFI's Primers in Complex Systems." The primers are around fifty to eighty pages in length, have a common look and feel, and must embody high quality production values (for example, nice graphics).

Each book serves as a coherent primer to its topic, providing a solid, scientifically accurate introduction to the core elements, including current theory, practice, examples, and future frontiers. The primers should be clear and concise and accessible to an advanced undergraduate or graduate student, who is a nonspecialist in the specific area of complex systems covered by the book. Any mathematics should be accessible (or made accessible) to someone who has taken a typical sequence of undergraduate mathematics. Ultimately, the book should be written for smart and interested nonspecialists in the area, in an intellectually rigorous, honest, and high quality manner. That is, a no-BS, not-for-dummies, straight-to-the-point introduction to the topic at hand, targeted to intelligent and interested readers.

The primers should primarily serve an academic market, primarily focused on adoption as supplementary reading in advanced undergraduate and graduate curricula. We also envision demand for these works by individual scholars who want to follow the frontiers in science. Finally, where possible the work should appeal to the intelligent lay reader, embodying interests in general science and business,