Simplicity of Complexity in Economic and Social Systems (eBook)

This book presents the Proceedings of the 54th Winter School of Theoretical Physics on Simplicity of Complexity in Economic and Social Systems, held in Poland, from 18 to 24 February 2018.

The purpose of the book is to introduce the new interdisciplinary research that links statistical physics, and particular attention is given to link physics of complex systems, with financial analysis and sociology. The main tools used in these areas are numerical simulation of agents behavior and the interpretation of results with the help of complexity methods, therefore a background in statistical physics and in physics of phase transition is necessary to take the first steps towards these research fields called econophysics and sociophysics.

In this perspective, the book is intended to graduated students and young researchers who want to begin the study of this established new area, which connects physicists, economists, sociologists and IT professionals, to better understand complexity phenomena existing not only in physics but also in complex systems being seemingly far from traditional view at physics.

Dariusz Grech is a polish theoretical physicist and mathematician, professor at the University of Wrolaw in the Institute of Theoretical Physics. He graduated in 1982 at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry of the University of Wroclaw and obtained a PhD in Applied Mathematics in 1988 at the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Sydney (Australia). From 1982, he was professionally associated with the University of Wroclaw, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Science (DSc) in the discipline of physical sciences in 2013 at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy. Prof. D. Grech is an international expert in the field of financial physics (econophysics), dealing with the use of complex system physics methods in interdisciplinary applications - mainly in economics. He was also a multiple lecturer at international scientific conferences in this field and he is the organizer co-organizer of national and international conferences in the field of econophysics and time series analysis. Since 2003, he has been elected a member of the Scientific Committee of the FENS section (Physics in Economics and Social Sciences) at the Polish Physical Society, and for several terms in the years 2003-2014 he was a member of the Board of this section. In 2004, he created a new global specialization of studies at the University of Wroclaw called econophysics (financial physics). In 2014, he was elected a member of the Management Board and the Presidium of the Main Board of the Polish Physical Society in Warsaw.   In 2015, he was awarded the title of an outstanding reviewer of the Physica A -  scientific journal published by Elsevier (the Netherlands).  He is the author of over 60 scientific publications in renowned world magazines and a reviewer of many scientific dissertations. His scientific interests include econophysics, physics of complex systems together with interdisciplinary applications, time series analysis, fractal and multifractal analysis of time series, applications of random matrix theory in processing large data sets, models unifying elementary interactions and extensions of the standard model of interactions.