Luis Bettencourt, Professor at the University of Chicago, discusses the complexity of cities and their impact on social factors. Topics include sub-linear and super-linear scaling, challenges of urban planning, walking faster in cities, slums, and the connection between infrastructure and mental health.

In this episode, Melanie Moses shares her experience of studying volcanoes in Iceland using a swarm of drones to map out the CO2 plume emitted by the volcano. The chapter discusses the use of unmanned drones to measure the gases emitted by volcanoes and the potential for predicting future eruptions. It explores the innovative use of drones in collecting data from volcanoes and showcases the programming and self-organization of co-robots. The process of mapping volcanic plumes and measuring gas concentrations using drones is explained. The episode also explores the utilization of the sketch algorithm and human intelligence to guide the drones in mapping volcanic plumes.

Orit Peleg, an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, talks about the synchronization of fireflies. She explains the process of studying firefly swarms, how even a small amount of coupling can lead to synchronization, and the potential applications in programming synchronized behaviors in swarms of robots.

In our last episode, you heard all about economic mobility. In this episode (which is part 2 of our conversation), you're going to hear again from Matthew Jackson, William D. Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. We finished the last episode by saying that if you want to increase a child's economic mobility, the factor that has the greatest impact is economic connectedness. In this episode, Matthew is going to talk about economic connectedness in our workplaces, our religious gatherings, and our schools.   Resources and links: Social capital I: measurement and associations with economic mobility | Nature Social capital II: determinants of economic connectedness | Nature Vast New Study Shows a Key to Reducing Poverty: More Friendships Between Rich and Poor - The New York Times (nytimes.com)   Connect: Simplifying Complexity on Twitter Sean Brady on Twitter Sean Brady on LinkedIn Brady Heywood website This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

If you're a child born into a poor family in the United States, what are the most important factors in your life that will influence whether or not you're able to rise out of poverty?  To answer that question, we're joined again by Matthew Jackson, William D. Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute.  This is part one of a two-part series, and in this episode, Matthew is going to introduce us to a study he was involved in that looked at the data of 21 billion friendships in the US that asked the question: what is it really that allows a child to get ahead?    Connect: Simplifying Complexity on Twitter Sean Brady on Twitter Sean Brady on LinkedIn Brady Heywood website This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

When a system fails, how do you think about cause and effect? One way to consider this in complex systems is to imagine a pile of sand, and dropping one grain of sand at a time in random positions onto the pile. As time passes, you'll start to form little hills. Eventually, a grain of sand will hit one of these hills, and you get an avalanche. Do you believe that the avalanche was caused by the last grain of sand falling onto it, or do you believe that the avalanche happened due to the shape of the hill itself? To explore this sand pile model, we are joined today by Neil Johnson, Professor of Physics and Head of the Dynamic Online Networks Lab at George Washington University.   Connect: Simplifying Complexity on Twitter Sean Brady on Twitter Sean Brady on LinkedIn Brady Heywood website This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

When most of us think about information, we think of it as something we can possess or ‘know’. But what if it’s so much more than that? In this episode, we’re joined by Sara Walker, Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Associate Professor in Earth and Space Exploration and Complex Adaptive Systems at Arizona State University, and External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Sara is going to examine information and the critical role it plays in complex systems.   Connect: Simplifying Complexity on Twitter Sean Brady on Twitter Sean Brady on LinkedIn Brady Heywood website This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

Imagine you have a bar that comfortably seats 60 people, but every week, 100 people have to decide whether or not they're going to go to the bar on any given night. If too many people go, then the bar is too crowded, and everyone has a miserable night. But if not enough people go, then that's a missed opportunity to go out. This is the basis of the El Farol problem, which asks us to consider how people make this decision. It's a beautifully simple problem that not only makes you think but also has profound implications. To help us through this problem, we're joined again by its inventor, W. Brian Arthur, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and Researcher at Palo Alto Research Center. Brian's going to help us understand how this problem is more than just the story of a bar, but a problem that gives us an incredible insight into how the economy works.   Connect: Simplifying Complexity on Twitter Sean Brady on Twitter Sean Brady on LinkedIn Brady Heywood website This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

In our last episode, we talked about the four conditions of complex systems: numerosity, disorder and diversity, feedback, and non-equilibrium — and we also talked about the concept of emergence. In this episode, which is part two of our two-part series on the features of complex systems, we're joined again by Karoline Wiesner, Professor of Complexity Science in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Potsdam in Germany. In this episode, Karoline explains the six emergent features of complex systems:  Spontaneous order and self-organisation Non-linearity Robustness Nested structure and modularity History and memory Adaptive behaviour  By the time you've finished this episode, you'll understand the underlying principles of complex systems that hold together the wide variety of topics we talk about in this series.   Resources and links: Karoline’s book ‘What Is a Complex System?’ Simplifying Complexity - What makes ant colonies robust?  Simplifying Complexity - The Economy and Complexity Science: Part 2    Connect: Simplifying Complexity on Twitter Sean Brady on Twitter Sean Brady on LinkedIn Brady Heywood website This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

In most of our episodes so far, we've taken a single concept and looked at it through the context of a single example. But in this episode and the next, we're going to pull back the camera to get a bird's-eye view of complexity science, by exploring the features common to all complex systems. We're joined again by Karoline Wiesner, Professor of Complexity Science in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Potsdam in Germany. In this episode, Karoline is going to explain four conditions that we see in complexity science: numerosity, disorder and diversity, feedback, and non-equilibrium. At the end of the episode, she's going to bring them all together to explain a central concept of complex systems: emergence.   Resources and links: Karoline’s book ‘What Is a Complex System?’   Connect: Simplifying Complexity on Twitter Sean Brady on Twitter Sean Brady on LinkedIn Brady Heywood website This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.