Chaos and Complex Systems

Schedule of Readings and Activities

This will change often..

This document was last modified on .

Unless otherwise noted, readings are from Flake.

Class	Date	Reading	Comments
W e e k    Z e r o
1	Friday, September 10	No reading.	Introductions. Ruminations on salad bowls and egg cartons.
W e e k    O n e
2	Tuesday, September 14	Preface, Introduction.	We obviously won't discuss the "Acknowledgments" section of the preface. I don't think I have much to say about section 1.3, but feel free to skim if if you want. Also, complete these experiments.
3	Friday, September 17	Robert May, "The Best Possible Time to be Alive" Reading in Flake from last time. Optional: Flake, Chapter 10. I think we've covered most of this in class. You might want to read this if you want a different take on the material, and/or if you have some questions while doing the homework. Chaos notes: Lectures 2 and 3 from my CSSS lectures.	I'd like to spend at least half an hour or so discussing the May essay. Bring questions and ideas to class. Also, complete these experiments.
W e e k    T w o
4	Tuesday, September 21	Watch BBC Chaos video.
5	Friday, September 24		Finish Dynamical Systems, more dynamical systems, Lyapunov exponents.
W e e k    T h r e e
6	Tuesday, September 28	Optional: Flake, Chapter 5.	Start Fractals
7	Friday, October 1	Optional: Flake, Chapter 2.	Fractal Show and Tell Different types of infinities.
W e e k    F o u r
8	Tuesday, October 5	Optional: Flake, Chapter 15.	Cellular Automata
9	Friday, October 8	J.L. Borges, "The Aleph."	We will discuss The Aleph in class. Bring a 1D CA pattern to class. See http://members.surfeu.at/tim2/caos/caos.html.
W e e k    F i v e
10	Tuesday, October 12	Optional readings on boolean networks: Introduction to Random Boolean Networks by Carlos Gershenson. S.A. Kauffman, Requirements for Evolvability in Complex Systems: Orderly Dynamics and Frozen Components, in Thinking About Biology, W.D. Stein and J.J. Varela, eds., Addison-Wesley, 1993. On reserve in the library.
11	Friday, October 15		10-minute project presentations.
W e e k    S i x
12	Tuesday, October 19	Optional complex networks readings: Caldarelli, Statistical Mechanics of Networks. Albert and Barabasi, Statistical Mechanics of Complex Networks. M.E.J. Newman, Gallery of Network Images M.E.J. Newman, The Structure and Function of Complex Networks. T.S. Evans, Complex Networks. Introduction to Social Network Models. M.E.J. Newman, Models of the Small World: A Review.	Class Midterm Evaluation Begin Complex Networks. Random graphs.
13	Friday, October 22		Small world and scale-free graphs.
W e e k    S e v e n
14	Tuesday, October 26		Scale free networks, power laws.
15	Friday, October 29		Begin models of behavior and strategy.
W e e k    E i g h t
16	Tuesday, November 2
	Tuesday, November 2.	U.S. Election Day
17	Friday, November 5.	No class	Faculty Retreat
W e e k    N i n e
17	Tuesday, November 9
18	Friday, November 12
W e e k    T e n
19	Tuesday, November 16
20	Friday, November 19		Conclusions, summary, course evaluations.