This book is inspired by boredom and fascination: boredom with the usual presentation of data structures and algorithms, and fascination with complex systems. The problem with data structures is that they are often taught without a motivating context; the problem with complexity science is that it is usually not taught at all. In 2005 I developed a new class at Olin College where students read about topics in complexity, implement experiments in Python, and learn about algorithms and data structures. .
