Ravenstein’s Flow Map

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Michael Batty
Amazing what you discover when you search the web. Couldn’t find Ravenstein’s 1888 map that Waldo Tobler sent me as a detailed scan. Its framed in my room at UCL and somewhere on the web I know. What I did find was Waldo giving a lightning talk about it. And there is the map!
Posted in Flows, Fluxes, Networks, SpatialInteraction | Leave a comment

Spatial Complexity

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Michael Batty
Started my new lecture course on Spatial Complexity at Arizona State University. It’s killing me doing relatively new stuff day after day. Lectures are posted after given: Seven so far, the last on Wednesday (2/11) (at http://www.spatialcomplexity.info/
Posted in Complex Systems, Evolution, Scaling, Social Physics | Leave a comment

The Complexity Brake

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Michael Batty
Paul Allen & Mark Greaves argue that the singularity that Ray Kurzweil amongst others are predicting within the next 30 years where AI & biomedicine merge and our species transforms, will not come to pass. This drama will be avoided by the “Complexity Brake”.  This accords with my own speculations.
Posted in Complex Systems, Emergence, Tipping Points | Leave a comment

Cities as Organisms

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Michael Batty
You go to conferences and learn about older papers that you should have known about. This short article from 1999 by Thomas Graedel poses the key issues about energy, ecosystems and cities, part of a series from the National Academy of Engineering about a science of cities.
Posted in Evolution | Leave a comment

FuturICT

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Michael Batty
is a project led by ETH Zurich and UCL which deals with the simulation of highly interconnected coupled social systems characterised by extreme events and fast dynamics: i.e. things that go on in Cities. See it on Vimeo, explore the Project, watch the Videos
Posted in Complex Systems, Emergence, Simulation | Leave a comment