{"id":13605,"date":"2020-08-25T07:53:59","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T14:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=13605"},"modified":"2020-08-31T13:41:59","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T20:41:59","slug":"the-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe-23-criticality-and-complexity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/25\/the-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe-23-criticality-and-complexity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 23. Criticality and Complexity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spherical cows are important because they let us abstract away all the complications of the real world and think about underlying principles. But what about when the complications are the point? Then we enter the realm of complex systems &#8212; which, interestingly, has its own spherical cows. One such is the idea of a &#8220;critical&#8221; system, balanced at a point where there is interesting dynamics at all scales. We know a lot about such systems, without approaching anything like a complete understanding just yet.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 23. Criticality and Complexity\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL___aFwrR702U\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/__aFwrR702U\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/__aFwrR702U\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT1H41M17S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2020-08-25T14:52:11Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte___aFwrR702U\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/__aFwrR702U\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 23. Criticality and Complexity<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/__aFwrR702U\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/__aFwrR702U\/0.jpg\" alt=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 23. Criticality and Complexity\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is a series of videos where I talk informally about some of the fundamental concepts that help us understand our natural world. Exceedingly casual, not overly polished, and meant for absolutely everybody. This is Idea #23, &quot; Criticality and Complexity.&quot; Having spend a lot of time on the basic ingredients of our universe, it&#039;s time to contemplate how they come together to make complex systems. The idea of critical behavior -- things happening at all spatial scales -- is an important organizing principle. My web page: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/ My YouTube channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/seancarroll Mindscape podcast: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/podcast The Biggest Ideas playlist: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3jyjUUrJlnoyzX Blog posts for the series: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/category\/biggest-ideas-in-the-universe\/ Background image: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Wiki_Science_Competition_2017_in_the_United_States\/Results#\/media\/File:The_Galaxy_Within.jpg #science #physics #ideas #universe #learning #cosmology #philosophy #complexity #criticality\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And here is the associated Q&amp;A video:<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;amp;A 23 - Criticality and Complexity\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_b0sSHn2jSqk\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/b0sSHn2jSqk\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b0sSHn2jSqk\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT1H5M18S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2020-08-30T15:37:22Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_b0sSHn2jSqk\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/b0sSHn2jSqk\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;A 23 - Criticality and Complexity<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/b0sSHn2jSqk\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/b0sSHn2jSqk\/0.jpg\" alt=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;amp;A 23 - Criticality and Complexity\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is a series of videos where I talk informally about some of the fundamental concepts that help us understand our natural world. Exceedingly casual, not overly polished, and meant for absolutely everybody. This is the Q&amp;A video for Idea #23, &quot; Criticality and Complexity.&quot; Two big themes here: the relationship between complexity and entropy, and the real-world technicalities of dealing with power-law distributions. My web page: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/ My YouTube channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/seancarroll Mindscape podcast: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/podcast The Biggest Ideas playlist: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3jyjUUrJlnoyzX Blog posts for the series: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/category\/biggest-ideas-in-the-universe\/ Background image: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Wiki_Science_Competition_2017_in_the_United_States\/Results#\/media\/File:The_Galaxy_Within.jpg #science #physics #ideas #universe #learning #cosmology #philosophy #complexity #criticality\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spherical cows are important because they let us abstract away all the complications of the real world and think about underlying principles. But what about when the complications are the point? Then we enter the realm of complex systems &#8212; which, interestingly, has its own spherical cows. One such is the idea of a &#8220;critical&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe","category-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13605"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13608,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13605\/revisions\/13608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}