Introduction to Modeling Nonlinear Natural and Human Systems Minitrack

Numerous natural and human-made systems can be described as nonlinear or complex. Such systems often escape the straight cause-effect and linear modeling patterns which traditional science has successfully used over centuries. Linear approximations of dynamic phenomena rarely deliver satisfactory results. On the other hand, nonlinear modeling techniques became feasible and more popular only with the advent of the digital computer some fifty years ago and have been widely used for little more than a decade and a half. In other words, even though the theoretical foundations were laid out much earlier, practical research and application of nonlinear modeling are still in their infancy compared with linear modeling.