Heinz R. Pagels (1939-1988), esteemed physicist and science writer, was author of The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature; Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time; and The Dreams of Reason: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity. Dr. Pagels died, tragically, in a mountaineering accident in Colorado. He was an associate professor at Rockefeller University and Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Academy of Sciences.Conspiracy-watchers will be interested to know that he was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His last book, The Dreams of Reason, is the best account I've read of what ``chaos, complexity and all that'' are, and what their larger implications are (if any). I've probably bought half-a-dozen copies for friends and relatives. I have taken the liberty of transcribing one chapter, ``The Quick Buck Becomes Quicker,'' on the transformation of banking: it has intrinsic interest, and it ties in with one of my works-in-glacial-progress. --- CRS