Why is percolation theory relevant to the analysis of complex systems? The question can be answered only if we first definewhat we mean by a complex system. I spent a large amount of time in vain, searching for a “clean,” generally‐accepteddefinition of a complex system, until I finally realized that there are probably as many definitions as the number of scientists that deal with complexsystems – there is not a clean universal definition of a complex system.
But, at the very least, we can agree that a complex system consists of a large number of interacting components, or parts. The interactionsmay be short- or long‐ranged, and may or may not change with time. One type of such interactions is the connectivity, the way the components or parts of a complex system are connected with each other. Clearly, if the components orparts of a complex system are not connected, they do not interact with each other, at least not directly. Now, if the connectivity of the components orparts of...
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© 2009 Springer-Verlag
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Sahimi, M. (2009). Percolation, Introduction to. In: Meyers, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30440-3_385
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