Complexity

Alberto Peruzzi

pp. 87-106

in: Guy A. Boy, Tangible interactive systems, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

Exploring the complexity of our universe is certainly a topic of interest for millennia. People always tried to develop models to explain where we live, where we come from, who we are, and so on. These models were matched to observable cues, until they were challenged by creativity and/or contradictions. Ancient Greeks, such as Aristotle and Ptolemy, described the cosmos in a geocentric way (i.e., planets like the Sun and the Moon were turning around the Earth on circular trajectories). During the mid-sixteenth century, Copernicus challenged the geocentric model by introducing the heliocentric hypothesis that the Earth was turning around the Sun. The invention of the telescope enabled astrophysicists, such as Galileo, to discover more planets and moons, as well as more precise properties of the solar system (e.g., Jupiter has moons; Venus is between the Earth and the Sun). Kepler discovered that planet trajectories around the Sun are elliptical. This model shift from geocentric to heliocentric caused huge resistance. People and institutions like stability and continuity in their beliefs. Changes cause instability that needs to be managed. In the light of this short preliminary astrophysics story, this chapter focuses on three human needs: world complexity exploration, solution discovery, and change management.