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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Strongly interacting systems that are driven far from equilibrium exhibit fascinating emergent behaviors, some of which are predicted by Per Bak¹s theory of self-organized criticality (SOC). SOC applied to 4He near the superfluid transition has resulted in many counter-intuitive new physical phenomena, including a new anisotropic temperature-entropy wave, a constant thermal gradient that is independent of the heat flux through the helium, and interesting specific heat anomalies. I will discuss measurements that we have made of these new phenomena over the last fifteen years at UNM and Caltech. SOC has also been applied to understand economic fluctuations by treating markets as highly-interactive non-equilibrium systems. This has led to the development of a new sub-discipline called Œeconophysics¹ which provides a much more appropriate risk analysis of catastrophic failures in the markets, such as that of Long Term Capital Preservation hedge fund in 1998. Similar applications of complexity theory have advanced high-speed searches for falsified data and other applications that may be useful to detect and mitigate criminal acts. I will provide a simple mathematical introduction to SOC, and discuss the prospects for new applications in the social sciences, and in biology.
Host: Julianna Fessenden-Rahn