GEOG3150 - GIS, Geocomputation and Geoplanning - Semster 2


Lecture 4 - Complexity and Emergence

Overview

The lecture will cover:

Lecture slides

The lecture slides are available on the VLE

Lecture Capture

The video recording of the lecture is available on the VLE.

Resources for this lecture

To really get a handle on the ideas presented in the lecture, you'll need to do some background reading / watching. These resources are a good place to start.

Chaos vs. Complexity

Understanding the distinction between these two terms is tricky, and the situation isn't helped by the fact that they are often used interchangeably.

This website has a nice, succinct comparison.

The Origins of Chaos

The BBC has a fantastic series (available as a podcast to download) called "A Brief History of Mathematics". They are all worth listening to, but episode 8 in particular discusses the work of Henri Poincare who inadvertently stumbled upon the mathematics of chaos.

Download the episode here.

The Secret Life of Chaos

A full-length BBC documentary, available on Box of Broadcasts.

Igor Nikolic, Complex Adaptive Systems TED talk

A great presentation about the world as a complex system. Available on TED

The Computational Beauty of Nature

Probably my favourite academic book! Read a chapter or two on complexity or chaos.

Flake, G. (1998) The Computational Beauty of Nature. MIT Press

Practical - An Advanced NetLogo Model

The practical for this week goes over how to make a more advanced model.

Practical 3 - An Advanced NetLogo Model


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