Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Cristián Huepe, CHuepe Labs & Northwestern "Echo Chambers and Post-Truth from a Complex Systems Perspective"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Cristián Huepe, CHuepe Labs & Northwestern University
Title:
Echo Chambers and Post-Truth from a Complex Systems Perspective
Abstract:
The recent emergence of echo chambers and post-truth can be understood through the quantitative study of collective opinion-formation dynamics on social networks. I will present a minimal complex adaptive network model that explains why both phenomena appear to be increasingly common in the internet era. Using numerical and analytical approaches, I will show that this model displays an absorbing state where the network splits into independent components, each with a different internal consensus, which correspond to the echo chambers that lead to post-truth. I will also discuss model extensions that can capture more subtle opinion dynamics and describe our recent analyses of Twitter data, aimed at validating and further developing our theoretical results.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Cristián Huepe is a theoretical physicist conducting research in complex systems, nonequilibrium dynamics and quantitative social sciences. His current work focuses on collective motion, active matter, complex networks, the art/science interface, and opinion formation. His recent studies on the underlying systemic causes of the post-truth phenomenon have received widespread attention from academia, business and the press.
Dr. Huepe obtained his PhD in Physics at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, after completing undergraduate studies in his native Chile. He was then a postdoctoral scholar in Chicago, first at the University of Chicago and later at Northwestern University. Since 2006, Dr. Huepe has worked as an unaffiliated scientist and head of CHuepe Labs Inc., developing multiple research grant projects, contracts, and collaborations around the world. He is currently an adjunct professor at Northwestern University and external faculty member at the Northwestern Institute on Complex System in the USA, as well as an associate researcher at Beijing Normal University in China and at the SCL-SoL lab in Chile. His work has been featured in the international press and magazines such as Science Daily, Focus Online, National Geographic Germany and Wired Magazine, among others.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, October 10, 2018 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lachlan Smith, University of Sydney "Chaos in networks of coupled oscillators with multimodal natural frequency distributions"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Lachlan Smith, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Mathematics and Statistics. The University of Sydney
Title:
Chaos in networks of coupled oscillators with multimodal natural frequency distributions
Abstract:
Synchronization is ubiquitous to networks of coupled oscillators. We explore chaos in the Kuramoto model with multimodal distributions of the natural frequencies of oscillators and provide a comprehensive description under what conditions chaos occurs. For multimodal natural frequency distributions it is typical that there is a range of coupling strengths such that multiple synchronized clusters coexist, with one synchronized cluster per peak in the frequency distribution. We use collective coordinates to describe the inter- and intra-cluster dynamics, which reduces the Kuramoto model to a small number of effective degrees of freedom. We show that chaos of the phases of clusters can occur provided there are at least four peaks in the frequency distribution, and that chaos can occur via intermittent desynchronization of a cluster if there are three peaks. In addition, we use collective coordinates to show analytically that chaos cannot occur for bimodal frequency distributions, even if they are asymmetric and if intermittent desynchronization occurs.
Speaker Bio:
Lachlan Smith is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, working with Georg Gottwald. Lachlan is interested in the collective behaviour of dynamical entities in networks, such as the synchronization of coupled oscillators. He uses a collective coordinate approach to reduce the dimension of the model, which allows greater analytical insight. Before moving to Sydney, Lachlan was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, working with Julio Ottino, Richard Lueptow and Paul Umbanhowar to study mixing and transport by cutting-and-shuffling, with applications to granular mixing. Lachlan received his PhD from Monash University in Mechanical Engineering.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lightning Talks with Northwestern Post Doctoral Fellows and Scholars!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Time
Wednesday, June 5, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Spring classes end
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Spring classes end
Time
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar