Complexity and Criticality of Heterogeneous and Anisotropic Spreading Models

Explore a 47-minute lecture from the Santa Fe Institute where Laurent Hébert-Dufresne from the University of Vermont examines how transmission mechanisms in spreading models vary across space and time, challenging traditional fixed-transmission assumptions. Discover how infectious diseases and social contagions like ideas, beliefs, and innovations are influenced by local behaviors, infrastructure, cultural norms, and evolutionary adaptations. Gain insights into how complex spreading dynamics emerge, including superlinear relationships between exposure and transmission, and power-law distributions occurring independently of critical points. Learn how different modeling tools reveal that complexity and criticality are fundamental characteristics of these heterogeneous and anisotropic spreading systems, rather than exceptions.