MessageToEagle.com – Perhaps it is a way to change our world for the better.
Scientists have developed a mathematical equation that could predict a number of future disasters threatening our planet and our lives.
The scientists’ mathematical calculation can predict financial crashes in economic systems, epileptic seizures in the brain as well as devastating climate changes.
The crystal ball was developed by scientists at the University of Sussex, UK. If the principle is generalised in other real-world complex systems, such as climate change or disease control, it could open up the possibility of catastrophes being averted before they happen.
In a collaboration between the University’s Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and the Centre for Research in Complex Systems at Charles Sturt University in Australia, researchers used mathematics and detailed computer simulations to show that a measure of ‘information flow’ reaches a peak just before a system moves from a healthy state to an unhealthy state.
Such ‘phase transitions’ are common in many real systems, and are often highly significant: epileptic seizures and financial market crashes are just two examples of transitions.
“The key insight in the paper is that the dynamics of complex systems – like the brain and the economy – depend on how their elements causally influence each other; in other words, how information flows between them,” lead researcher Dr Lionel Barnett says.
“And that this information flow needs to be measured for the system as a whole, and not just locally between its various parts.”
In the present study the research team managed to do just this, and to show for the first time that their measure reliably predicts phase transitions in standard systems studied by physicists now for many decades (the so-called ‘Ising’ model).
“The implications of the work are far-reaching,” Professor Anil Seth, Co-Director of the Sackler Centre, says.
If the results generalize to other real-world systems, we might have ways of predicting calamitous events before they happen, which would open the possibility for intervention to prevent the transition from occurring.
“For example, the ability to predict the imminent onset of an epileptic seizure could allow a rapid medical intervention (perhaps via brain stimulation) which would change the course of the dynamics and prevent the seizure.
If similar principles apply to financial markets, climate systems, and even immune systems, similar interventions might be possible, further research is needed to explore these exciting possibilities.”
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References:
Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 177203