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CSCS 501: An Introduction to Complex Systems -- Winter 2007
Mon, Wed 4:00 - 5:30 pm
Location: New CSCS Commons -- 317A West Hall
Credits: 3
Rick Riolo
rlriolo@umich.edu
Important note regarding registration:
The course is currently listed with a cap of 12 students.
The final course size will be in the 16-20 range.
If you are interested in registering, please just get
on the waitlist.
We will be give priority in this order:
- CSCS students
- other graduate students
- undergraduates
generally with first-come-first serve within each category,
but with some bias given to students who are about to graduate
(and so cannot take the course in future terms).
In past years, everyone who has wanted to stay in the course
has been able to, even when the waiting list starts out fairly large,
as people sign up now but drop before the term starts, or drop after
they find out how hard the course is going to be (! ;-)), etc.
So if you are interested, I recommend you get on the waitlist,
come to the first class or two, and then we can see what
shakes out.
If you have questions, feel free to contact me.
Goals of CSCS 501
This course covers a broad range of fundamental topics relevant to the
study of complex systems. The course work involves weekly readings
and discussion of papers and selections from books. The readings
focus on "classics" in the complex systems literature, in order to
give students a broad, general understanding for the variety of work
that falls under the rubric of complex systems. Topics to be covered
will include evolutionary systems, self-organized criticality,
measures of complexity, approaches to modeling complex adaptive
systems, and emergence. Authors to be covered include Holland,
Axelrod, Kauffman, Bak, and Gell-Mann, Wolfram, Simon and many others.
More details about the class are included in a
handout passed out at the first class.
Final details of the syllabus of readings will be announced
as the term proceeds, as
some readings will be determined only after the class begins,
based on the expressed interests of the participants.
Some of those readings are from books we will buy.
Others will be in a couple of course packs.
See below for the actual syllabus for this term.
Candidate topics and readings are
here.
A few additional general CAS readings can be found
here.
Some historical notes about the origins of this course,
as well as more details on the format of the course, are
here.
To get an idea of what kinds of readings are appropriate,
the actual reading assignments for past terms:
Classwork and grades:
Grading will be based on participation in the discussions and on two papers:
1. Class discussion 33%
(An incentive to read and discuss!)
2. Short paper I 33%
Due: 14 March 2007
3. Short paper II 33%
Due: 23 April 2007
Press
here for a description of
the paper requirements.
Last Changed: 24 Jan 2007
Updated March 12, 2005
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