Simplexity by Jeffrey Kluger
July 19th, 2008Title: Simplexity
Author: Jeffrey Kluger
Publisher: Hyperion (2008)
When I saw this book, I knew right away that I would like it. Apart from the cover being awesome (a sweet looking Swiss watch), I am a sucker for explanation books and TV shows. This is why I love to watch How It’s Made, Dirty Jobs & The Works. This book, written by the author of Apollo 13, promised to explain why things are the way they are. Specifically, it looks at the complexity of actions and devices.
Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple) was very interesting to read. Kluger, a Time Magazine contributor, wanted to find the answers to questions such as: “Why is the stock market so hard to predict? and “Why do bad teams win so many games and good teams lose so many?”
Kluger describes a complexity scale that all of these questions can be associated with. At one end of an arc is pure chaos and at the other is pure robustness…both very simple things. An empty room filled with gas that allows the molecules to bounce around the room at will is chaotic but simple. A lump of carbon chilled to the point where molecules can’t move is robust, but simple. Total disorder at one end and frozen at the other. It’s the arc in the middle where complexity comes in.
Kluger uses this definition of Complexity to look at the questions he asked. The problem I had with some of his answers is that he didn’t necessarily answer the question. For example, he never really says why bad teams win so many games. He talks about the complexity of the sport, but never answers the questions. I would think the answer isn’t as complex as he wants it to be. Bad teams win games because at a professional level…everyone is still pretty good. So if a bad team happens to play well that day, they will win. This is why sports seasons are long, to figure out who is the best. Now, I suppose figuring out why a group of players happened to play well one game would be tougher to answer.
One thing I thought was funny in the sports chapter was his discussion of the complexity of the rule books. For example, the first amendment of the US Constitution is 45 words…the portion of the NFL rule book establishing permissible size and color of jersey numbers is 77 words. 1.5 pages are dedicated to defining the shape and weight of the ball! The Major League Baseball rule book is 10 chapters long, which are divided into 123 sub-chapters!
My favorite chapter was on health care. Partly because he told the story of Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, which I also wrote about in my review of Banker to the Poor. This chapter discusses the health care “90-10″ rule: for every dollar spent worldwide to battle disease, about 90 cents goes to fight illnesses that affect only 10% of the population. This is obviously explained by the fact that people tend to finance disease research that affects those close to them. So diseases in wealthy nations tend to get to most funding, no matter what percentage of the population it affects. An excellent example is the money that is put into researching Alzheimer’s disease, which occurs in 5% of people between 65-74 vs. measles which kills up to 400,000 people per year, most of them under 5. By the way, Kluger is in no way saying that Alzheimer’s disease should not be researched. The problem isn’t just researching funds, because a lot of diseases that kill millions worldwide already have cures established. The measles and polio vaccination costs 16 cents each. Treatment for parasitic river blindness costs $1. The list goes on.
The other reason I liked this chapter the best is because Kluger goes on to describe how a group of doctors figured out a way to keep diarrheal victims hydrated while they wait for medicine to take affect. It is a fantastically simple idea used to help people retain water…but no one had thought of it yet. It reminded me of yet another book I reviewed called Better by Atul Gawande.
This was a pretty good book. I enjoyed the topics he chose to write about and I feel I learned some potentially valuable things. Which, I suppose, is the point of reading books like this!
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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