New science of complexity online through VLAB

July 11, 2007

Visitors to VLAB, Monash University’s virtual laboratory, will be able to explore the new science of complexity by performing their own experiments online.

Launched this week by the Faculty of Information Technology, the site aims to raise awareness of complexity in the modern world.

VLAB was showcased at the recent 8th Asia-Pacific Complex Systems Conference, where it won the award for best software demonstration.

The site’s founders, Professor David Green and Alex Heng, developed VLAB because they saw a need for the public to be better informed about complexity.

“In the modern world we’re surrounded by complex systems, systems rich in interactions. One of the insights that complex systems science has given us is that what seem like trivial local interactions can have staggering global consequences, such as stock market crashes or power grid failures. So we are constantly facing unexpected issues and problems.”

Complexity, one of the key new sciences of the twenty-first century, deals with the richness in behaviour often seen in large systems. Best summed up by the expression: “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” complexity is what emerges when many things interact. A flock of birds emerges from interactions between individual birds. An epidemic emerges from contacts between people.

VLAB is a web-based resource for research and education about complex systems. It aims to raise awareness of complexity in all its forms. To do this it provides virtual experiments in which players can experience complexity and its consequences. The demonstrations range from basic concepts to current research results.

VLAB also includes experiments that reveal the role complexity plays in such diverse social issues as cascading failures in power grids, the spread of computer viruses and the influence of media on public opinion.

Besides its educational role, VLAB is also an important resource for researchers.

“It’s important in science for colleagues to check your results, but this is difficult in a field like complex systems, which depends on simulation software that can take months to develop. VLAB makes it possible for colleagues to read our research and test the results for themselves. For example, last year we published a book Complexity in Landscape Ecology and all of the models in the book are available on the VLAB site.”

VLAB can be found online at http://vlab.infotech.monash.edu.au/