Complex systems as a research area focuses on studying systems composed of many interacting components whose collective behavior exhibits nonlinearity, emergence, adaptation, and self-organization. It integrates methods from statistical physics, dynamical systems, information theory, network science, and computational modeling to characterize structure–dynamics relationships across domains such as biology, ecology, social systems, and technological networks. Research emphasizes multiscale interactions, feedback loops, critical phenomena, robustness, and phase transitions, often using agent-based models, coupled differential equations, or stochastic processes to understand how macroscopic patterns arise from microscopic rules and how these systems respond to perturbations or control interventions.
A new study published in the journal One Earth reveals that the way ecosystems collapse—abruptly or gradually—may depend on internal complexity, much like how magnetic materials behave under stress.
Earth Sciences
Jul 18, 2025
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101
Researchers from the University of Tokyo in collaboration with Aisin Corporation have demonstrated that universal scaling laws, which describe how the properties of a system change with size and scale, apply to deep neural ...
General Physics
Jul 18, 2025
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78
The beautiful, fascinating and often perplexing world around us grows from intricate and convoluted interactions of millions of pieces. As scientists, we work to understand and describe the parts and interactions of these ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 16, 2025
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16
There are moments in the history of human thought when a simple realization transforms our understanding of reality. A moment when chaos reveals itself as structure, when disorder folds into meaning, and when what seemed ...
Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays are the highest-energy particles in the universe, whose energies are more than a million times what can be achieved by humans. But while the existence of UHECRs has been known for 60 years, researchers ...
Astronomy
Mar 1, 2025
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301
A study led by Professor Ginestra Bianconi from Queen Mary University of London, in collaboration with international researchers, has unveiled a transformative framework for understanding complex systems.
General Physics
Feb 19, 2025
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87
A new computational method can identify how cause-and-effect relationships ebb and flow over time in dynamic real-life systems such as the brain.
General Physics
Nov 12, 2024
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150
In both the natural world and human society, there commonly exist complex systems, such as climate systems, ecological systems, and network systems. Due to the involvement of numerous interacting elements, complex systems ...
Optics & Photonics
Sep 2, 2024
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68
Applying chaos theory to the movement of iconic arctic whales uncovered a 24-hour diving cycle and a long-range (~100 km) synchronization.
General Physics
Aug 12, 2024
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2254
A crowd or a flock of birds have different characteristics from those of atoms in a material, but when it comes to collective movement, the differences matter less than we might think. We can try to predict the behavior of ...
General Physics
Aug 8, 2024
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190
