Many complex systems - from immensely complicated ecosystems to minute assemblages of molecules - surprise us with their simple behaviour. Consider, for instance, the snowflake, in which a great number of water molecules arrange themselves in patterns with six-way symmetry. How is it that molecules [...]

Tychomancy--meaning "the divination of chances"--presents a set of rules for inferring the physical probabilities of outcomes from the causal or dynamic properties of the systems that produce them. Probabilities revealed by the rules are wide-ranging: they include the probability of getting a 5 on a[...]