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. 1995 Jul 18;92(15):6689–6696. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.15.6689

Complexity, contingency, and criticality.

P Bak 1, M Paczuski 1
PMCID: PMC41396  PMID: 11607561

Abstract

Complexity originates from the tendency of large dynamical systems to organize themselves into a critical state, with avalanches or "punctuations" of all sizes. In the critical state, events which would otherwise be uncoupled become correlated. The apparent, historical contingency in many sciences, including geology, biology, and economics, finds a natural interpretation as a self-organized critical phenomenon. These ideas are discussed in the context of simple mathematical models of sandpiles and biological evolution. Insights are gained not only from numerical simulations but also from rigorous mathematical analysis.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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