Strategies and Rubrics for Teaching Chaos and Complex Systems Theories as
Elaborating, Self-Organizing, and Fractionating Evolutionary Systems
Fichter, Lynn S., Pyle, E.J., and Whitmeyer, S.J., 2010, Journal of Geoscience Education (in press)
SOCSelf-
Organized Criticality
Self Organized CriticalityEvolution Via Self
Organization
Self Organized CriticalityEvolution Via Self
Organization
“Complex behavior in nature reflects the tendency of large systems with many components to evolve into a poised, "critical" state, way out of balance, where minor disturbances may lead to events, called avalanches, of all sizes. Most of the changes take place through catastrophic events rather than by following a smooth gradual path. The evolution to this very delicate state occurs without design from any outside agent. The state is established solely because of the dynamical interactions among individual elements of the system: the critical state is self-organized. Self-organized criticality is so far the only known general mechanism to generate complexity.”
Self-Organized CriticalityPer Bak
1948-2002
The sand pile builds . . . grain . . . by grain . . . by grain . . . by grain . . . by grain . . . by grain . . . by grain . . . by grain . . . Building toward the critical state . . .
Where it avalanches
building
avalanche
building
avalanche
building
avalanche
Avalanche Behavior
Avalanche- a large mass of snow, ice, etc., detached from a mountain slope and sliding or falling suddenly downward.Avalanche- anything like an avalanche in suddenness and overwhelming quantity: an avalanche of misfortunes; an avalanche of fan mail.
Now, imagine the sand supply follows a power law (or is fractal), with different numbers of grains falling at different times.
Power Law Sand Supply
Avalanches will follow a power law distribution.
http://atlas.gc.ca/maptexts/topic_texts/english/images/TemperatureCO2.jpg
Earth Temp. curve over the past 400,000 years
Examples of Extreme Avalanches
1929 stock market crash
1987 stock market crash
Cascading Power Grids Failures – when a hub is required to carry more than it is capable of carrying, and so crashes, leading to the next hub to crash, etc.North America blackout 1965 North America blackout 2003
Examples of Extreme Avalanches
Note that most genera have a life span of 10 million years or less, and that very few genera survive over 100 million years. This is a power law relationship.
0 50 100 150Life Span (millions of years)
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
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er o
f Gen
era
Distribution of Geologic Life Spansof Fossil Genera
Note that the number of large extinctions are very infrequent. The largest, the Permian, is the only one of its size. Smaller extinctions— <10 %—on the other hand, occurred in over 50 separate geological stages.
0 20 40 60 80 100Percent Extinction
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logic
Stage
s
0
10
20
30
40
50 Extinction Intensity ForPhanerozoic Genera
In 106 Time Intervals (stages)
Devo
nian
K-T an
d Tria
ssic
Ordovic
ian
Permian
Are mass extinctions differentfrom background?
Life is a Self Organized Criticalphenomena
Examples of Extreme AvalanchesExtinctions
Stuart Kauffman“The critical point is not, as Stuart Kauffman once described it, “a nice place to be.” So “survival of the fittest” does not imply evolution to a state where everybody is well off. On the contrary, individual species are barely able to hang on - like the grains of sand in the critical sand pile.” Systems are always at the critical point, or if they are not at the critical point they are evolving toward the critical point.
That is, the common idea that systems evolve toward equilibrium is a misperception of reality.