Purpose: Many modern businesses, processes, and systems behave in unexpected ways because of increased complexity. Traditional methods are not able to explain or “model” these systems. Instead, we must turn to nonlinear, chaotic, long-tailed, and sometimes extreme methods of analysis to understand and control these systems. The purpose of this course is 2-fold: to survey the tools of complexity theory, and to use them to better understand business/economics, ecological/climate, sociological/political, and security systems.

Format: Lecture, discussion, and exploratory projects. Students are expected to work in small groups to apply principles of complexity theory to an issue or problem selected from their field of study.