====== Self-Organized Criticality ======

The term //Self-Organized Criticality// (SOC) was introduced in a 1987 paper for //Physical Review Letters//. The groundbreaking research by Per Bak, Chao Tang and Kurt Wiesenfeld (now known as 'BTW') described how complex systems can feature 'critical' points in their development which can lead to sudden, dramatic changes (phase transitions).

The original study focused on the growth (and sudden collapses) in piles of sand.

The concept has now found applications in geophysics,<sup> </sup>cosmology, evolutionary biology, ecology, bio-inspired computing, economics, sociology, solar physics, plasma physics, neuro-biology, electrical failures, and many other fields.

However :

>Despite the considerable interest and research output generated from the SOC hypothesis, __there remains no general agreement with regards to its mechanisms in abstract mathematical form. "__\\ \\ Source : [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality#Overview|Wikipedia]]

In addition, there is currently no agreement on a method which can show whether any particular system will, at some stage, show SOC or not.

See : [[https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.59.381|Self-organized criticality: An explanation of the 1/f noise]]  Phys. Rev. Lett. 59, 381{{:oa_padlock_red.png?16}}<sup>[ Paywalled ]</sup> (A copy of which may be found [[http://jeti.uni-freiburg.de/studenten_seminar/stud_sem05/bak.pdf|here]]{{:oa_padlock_grn.png?16}})

//Note: //The authors of the paper suggested that SOC theory may contribute towards the understanding of naturally occurring [[content/mathematics/fractals]] and [[content/physics/general/turbulence]]

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Also see : [[content:earth_sciences:sand_dunes]]

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