Category Archives: Chaos

The Quest for the Qualitative

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Michael Batty

Notwithstanding Rutherford’s quote “Qualitative is nothing but poor quantitative”, my old article (1982, but rediscovered! on the web) may have contemporary resonance if not relevance. How to think about discontinuities in social systems in terms of catastrophe theory: riots and … Continue reading →

Posted in Chaos, Emergence, Policy Analysis, Tipping Points, Urban Dynamics | Leave a comment

Frozen Accidents

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Michael Batty

Murray Gell-Mann says the  “accumulation of frozen accidents is what gives the world its effective complexity.” These are events that define path dependence. The idea that a city is a sequence of accidents sharpens our sense of cities as patterns of regularity. … Continue reading →

Posted in Chaos, Complex Systems, Evolution, Path Dependence | Leave a comment

Past Glimpses of Chaos, Complexity and Tipping Points

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Michael Batty

Great Talk by Paul Ormerod at Durham on Tipping Points in Financial Systems, quoting Keynes in 1937 who said: “Actually, however, we have, as a rule, only the vaguest idea of any but the most direct consequences of our acts.” Read … Continue reading →

Posted in Chaos, Complex Systems, Tipping Points | Leave a comment