Crashing markets, power blackouts and sudden death: The physics of a networked world
- Time:
- Sunday, November 3rd, 9:30 am to 10:30 am
- Location:
- Century Ballroom B
- Speaker(s):
- H. Eugene StanleyWilliam Fairfield Warren distinguished professor; professor of physics, chemistry, biomedical engineering, and physiology; director, Center for Polymer Studies, Boston University
Massive power outages, global financial crashes and sudden death in the elderly are all startling and befuddling events. To Gene Stanley, they're unavoidable shocks in an interconnected world, where interdependencies between networks create dangerous vulnerabilities. Stanley and his colleagues have uncovered new laws that show why everyday fluctuations in one network can trigger abrupt failures across coupled networks. They've found that the rapid switching typical of financial networks produces features analogous to phase transitions in physics. Furthermore, market moves that economists call "rare events" turn out to have the same statistical properties as everyday fluctuations. Recently, the group has applied these principles to Google query data and found early warning signs of market changes.
For more information, see the CASW website.
