From the Amazon rainforest to human body cells: Quantifying stability
Sunday, January 6, 2013 - 13:00
in Physics & Chemistry
The Amazon rainforest, energy grids, and cells in the human body share a troublesome property: They possess multiple stable states. When the world's largest tropical forest suddenly starts retreating in a warming climate, energy supply blacks out, or cells turn carcinogenic, complex-systems science understands this as a transition between two such states. These transitions are obviously unwanted.