The Economic Times of India describes the complex systems science principles underlying statistical models some scientists, including former SFI Omidyar Fellow Aaron Clauset, are using to try to forecast large-scale terrorist events.
Read the Economic Times article (September 25, 2011)
A handful of scientists are taking advantage of petabytes of new social data and faster supercomputers to develop statistical mechanics-based models that apply theories of non-linear dynamics, fractals, and phase transitions to complex social phenomena.
Based on his modeling, Clauset believes the probability of 9/11-scale event occurring is 3% every year in the future, and 30% over the next 10 years.
"Collective human behaviour is more predictable than we thought," says Clauset, now an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Colorado in Boulder.