At this colloquium, we are happy to welcome:

Viola Priesemann (MPI)

Information Spread: From Neural Networks to Societal Dynamics

Life hinges on information processing: to navigate the world, animals rely on their brains – and thus on the fine, collective interactions of millions or billions of neurons. Importantly, these networks can learn in a self-organized manner, i.e., the neurons update their connectivity and information transmission without any explicit teacher signal. We aim to understand the basic principles of this emergent information flow or “infogenesis” using the approaches from statistical physics and information theory. Understanding infogenesis is very interesting per se; in addition, it also serves as a starting point to understand the flow of (mis)information in social networks, pointing to surprising similarities. With studying these living information processors side-by-side, we shed light on the basic self-regulation of information spread - and the failure thereof.

Nora Molkenthin (PIK)

Pattern formation in interacting paths on networks

The dynamics of chains or paths underpin phenomena ranging from walkers on networks to protein folding in space. This talk focuses on the shapes emerging in interacting paths and presents methods for their analysis. In particular we look at paths created by ride-pooling dynamics to gain insights into their formation mechanisms, as well as their dependence on system parameters. In Euclidean space statistical physics methods reveal different timescales in the diffusion of ride-pooling paths, depending on path density and request load. On networks, recurrence plots clearly distinguish between different types of path dynamics and underlying networks and help to identify the spontaneous emergence of persistent periodic trajectories, co-existing with unstructured routes. In the context of shared mobility applications, these states imply a regime of naturally stable co-existence between flexible and line-based public transport and raises the question of how to integrate such systems in as an intermodal mobility system.