When:
Friday, February 6, 2015
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CT
Where: Technological Institute, L211, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public
Contact:
Pamela Villalovoz
13645
Group: Physics and Astronomy Colloquia
Category: Academic
Title: Network Dynamics: The Science of Interactions
Speaker: Adilson Motter, Northwestern University
Abstract: It is now clear that we live in a world permeated by complex systems that are neither well ordered nor well mixed. These systems are highly structured, made up of a large number of component parts, and exhibit collective behavior that cannot be anticipated (even in principle) from the behavior of the parts themselves. As such, they naturally lend themselves to be modeled as networks of interactions. In this presentation, I will first briefly discuss what this tells us about the physical world and the need of non-reductionistic approaches to understand it. I will then explore example applications in which problems can be solved by focusing on the interaction network rather than the system elements, including problems related to drug target identification, cascade control, microfluidics, smart grids, metamaterials, and network repurposing. The overarching themes will be the control of complex systems and the creation of new systems with unprecedented properties.
Host: Frank Petriello
Speaker Schedule
Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, colloquium