Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life

Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein both produced successful theories of motion, which are technically time-reversible.2 They explain the motion of cannonballs, planets, and satellites without a clear distinction between where an object is and where it is going. This symmetry, which is true for simple systems, fails to explain why lions eat and digest

Spontaneous emergence is described as self-organization because the emergent structure arises due to the laws of nature and the collective interactions of the system’s components, and not because of the actions of an external agent, like a human engineer or a supernatural deity. It is worth noting that it may be a bit misleading to call the order-f

What’s really happening within each city is a massive exchange of information across social and economic networks of people and organizations, all taking place on a complex infrastructural landscape of buildings, roads, pipes, and wires. For the most part there is no maestro; the properties of cities emerge from countless interactions of millions o

Can the fundamental nature of matter really be lawlessness? Can the stability and order of the world be but a temporary dynamic equilibrium achieved in a corner of the universe, a short-lived eddy in a chaotic current?