CBIOL 1150FYS - Patterns in Nature

Catalog

What do lungs have to do with broccoli having to do with rivers? What's the connection between swarms of bees, rush hour traffic and schools of fish? If your friend's roommate's sister is happy, does that affect how happy you are? And does that have anything to do with Internet videos going viral? In this First Year Seminar, we will explore the connections between various, sometimes seemingly disparate phenomena with key concepts of complexity theory, the core of which is how simple rules give rise to complex phenomena. To start, we will familiarize ourselves with basic topics that we will need to later understand fractals, networks and chaos.