Category Archives: Tipping Points

Crowds, Congestion and Extreme Events

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Michael Batty

My talk at CPGIS this morning is about how we might use all our new flow data to build new models to explore how city systems fail. This is more a talk about what we would like to do, rather … Continue reading →

Posted in Allometry, Complex Systems, Flows, Fluxes, Networks, Tipping Points | Leave a comment

The Quest for the Qualitative

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Michael Batty

Notwithstanding Rutherford’s quote “Qualitative is nothing but poor quantitative”, my old article (1982, but rediscovered! on the web) may have contemporary resonance if not relevance. How to think about discontinuities in social systems in terms of catastrophe theory: riots and … Continue reading →

Posted in Chaos, Emergence, Policy Analysis, Tipping Points, Urban Dynamics | Leave a comment

The Complexity Brake

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Michael Batty

Paul Allen & Mark Greaves argue that the singularity that Ray Kurzweil amongst others are predicting within the next 30 years where AI & biomedicine merge and our species transforms, will not come to pass. This drama will be avoided by … Continue reading →

Posted in Complex Systems, Emergence, Tipping Points | Leave a comment

Past Glimpses of Chaos, Complexity and Tipping Points

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Michael Batty

Great Talk by Paul Ormerod at Durham on Tipping Points in Financial Systems, quoting Keynes in 1937 who said: “Actually, however, we have, as a rule, only the vaguest idea of any but the most direct consequences of our acts.” Read … Continue reading →

Posted in Chaos, Complex Systems, Tipping Points | Leave a comment