Access
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Essay
Nature 446, 860 (19 April 2007) | doi:10.1038/446860a; Published online 18 April 2007
Connections Rules of engagement
- John Doyle is at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125-8100, USA
- Marie Csete is at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA.
Top of page
Abstract
Complex engineered and biological systems share protocol-based architectures that make them robust and evolvable, but with hidden fragilities to rare perturbations.
Chaos, fractals, random graphs and power laws inspire a popular view of complexity in which behaviours that are typically unpredictable and fragile 'emerge' from simple interconnections among like components. But applied to the study of highly evolved systems, this attractively simple view has led to widespread confusion.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).