Complex Systems
What are complex systems?
Complex systems concepts provide a new unity of approach to many different problems. These concepts originate from efforts to understand physical, biological and social systems. Examples of applications can be found in all fields of science and professions including physics, biology, neuroscience, engineering, and art.
The study of complex systems tries to uncover the mechanisms that underlie our complex world. It is exploring the communication in physical, biological and social systems. It us trying to understand what causes systems to be robust. It is unraveling the computational ability of natural systems. It is predicting the behavior of social dynamical systems. This list is just mentioning a few topics. The seminar series will give insight into many more.
For more details, see for example the "Complex System" entry of Wikipedia, the web based forum on complex systems run by NECSI, or the NECSI wiki.
Links to research institutions for complex systems
- Center for Complex Systems Research, University of Illinois
- Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan
- Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
- New England Complex Systems Institute
- Santa Fe Institute