August 1972 saw the publication of Philip Anderson’s essay ‘More is different’. In it, he crystallized the idea of emergence, arguing that “at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear” — that is, although, for example, chemistry is subject to the laws of physics, we cannot infer the field of chemistry from our knowledge of physics. Fifty years on from this landmark publication, eight scientists describe the most interesting phenomena that emerge in their fields.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$99.00 per year
only $8.25 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Get just this article for as long as you need it
$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Change history
15 July 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00495-7
References
Anderson, P. W. More is different. Science 177, 393–396 (1972).
Darwin, C. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (John Murray, 1859).
Marshall, S. M. et al. Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry. Nat. Commun. 12, 3033 (2021).
Pringle, R. M. & Tarnita, C. E. Spatial self-organization of ecosystems: integrating multiple mechanisms of regular-pattern formation. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 62, 359–377 (2017).
Sundaram, M. et al. Rainfall, neighbors, and foraging: the dynamics of a population of red harvester ant colonies 1988–2019. Ecol. Monogr. 92, e1503 (2022).
Watson, J. P. A termite mound in an Iron Age burial ground in Rhodesia. J. Ecol. 55, 663–669 (1967).
Baker, C. C. M. et al. Spatial patterning of soil microbial communities created by fungus-farming termites. Mol. Ecol. 29, 4487–4501 (2020).
Pringle, R. M. et al. Spatial pattern enhances ecosystem functioning in an African savanna. PLoS Biol. 8, e1000377 (2010).
De Domenico, M. et al. The physics of spreading processes in multilayer networks. Nat. Phys. 12, 901–906 (2016).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Steven Strogatz
Steven Strogatz is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. He works on nonlinear dynamics and complex systems applied to physics, biology and the social sciences. His 1998 Nature paper ‘Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks’, co-authored with his former student Duncan Watts, ranks among the top 100 most-cited scientific papers of all time.
Sara Walker
Sara Walker is an astrobiologist and physicist researching origins of life and universal laws that might allow us to find examples elsewhere. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Julia M. Yeomans
Julia M. Yeomans FRS is Professor of Theoretical Physics and Head of the Rudolf Peierls Centre at the University of Oxford. She applies techniques from theoretical and computational physics to problems in soft condensed matter and biophysics. Her current research interests include active matter and mechanobiology. She has been awarded the EPJE-de Gennes Lecture Prize, the Sam Edwards Prize of the Institute of Physics and the Lennard–Jones Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Julia has four daughters and enjoys hiking and orienteering.
Corina Tarnita
Corina Tarnita is a Professor in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. Previously she was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. She obtained her BA and PhD in Mathematics from Harvard University. Corina studies the emergence of complex biological properties out of simple interactions, across spatiotemporal scales.
Elsa Arcaute
Elsa Arcaute is a Professor of Complexity Science at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London. She holds a masters and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge. Her initial research within complexity science explored self-organization in ant colonies. For the past 10 years, her research has focussed on cities, and urban systems in general.
Manlio De Domenico
Manlio De Domenico is a complexity scientist and professor of physics at the University of Padua. He works on statistical physics of complex networks and nonlinear dynamics, with special focus on systems of systems, information dynamics and geometry, and on the emergence of functional behaviour from the interplay between structure and dynamics in biophysical, socio-ecological and socio-technological systems.
Oriol Artime
Oriol Artime is a postdoctoral researcher at Bruno Kessler Foundation in Italy. He works on topics at the interface between statistical physics and complex systems, from classical problems such as phase transitions and first-passage processes to modern applications of network science. He has a bent for innovative interdisciplinary challenges and, when possible, seeks to orientate his research in those directions.
Kwang-Il Goh
Kwang-Il Goh is a professor of physics at Korea University, interested in statistical physics of complex networks. Following a major itinerary from scale-free networks and multiplex networks to higher-order networks, his main research has focussed on finding and applying emerging singularities in complex networked systems and their physics implications, using simple, physics-flavoured models and dynamical processes.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Strogatz, S., Walker, S., Yeomans, J.M. et al. Fifty years of ‘More is different’. Nat Rev Phys 4, 508–510 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00483-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00483-x
