An introduction to agent-based modeling

“This book eloquently captures the excitement of understanding natural and social phenomena by recreating them in computer simulations. The agent-based approach championed here provides deeply satisfying scientific explanations because it provides a bridge between levels of description, showing how high-level, macroscopic properties, such as crystal formation, tumor shape, flocking, population cycles, social coordination, and transportation networks, can spontaneously emerge from lower-level interactions among agents rather than being explicitly programmed into a model. When combined with active exploration using Uri Wilensky’s free and widely used NetLogo programming environment, reading this book equips students and researchers with a new language for generating and expressing scientific theories"--