It looks like I became a character in a comic book!
Last year, I gave a talk in Basel, invited by the "Nature Addicts Fund". I spoke about several subjects, but one that seems to have had an impact was my description of how complex systems tend to dissipate energy potentials as fast as possible. I used the metaphor of the "hourglass," based on the "Self-Organized Criticality" model developed by Per Bak and others. A model that explains a lot of how and why collapses occur.You can find a document about the whole Basel meeting at this link. Below, the two pages dealing with my talk. Note that they use the beautiful name of "clepsydra" for an object normally called "hourglass". Literally, clepsydra means "thief of water" and it refers to ancient water clocks.
To read the text below, enlarge the images by clicking on them.
