Mark Buchanan (born October 31, 1961, in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

) is an American outreach physicist and author. He was formerly an editor with the international journal of science ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'', and the popular science magazine ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a popular science magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organ ...

''. He has been a guest columnist for the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', and currently writes a monthly column for the journal '' Nature Physics''. Buchanan's books and articles typically explore ideas of

modern physics Modern physics is a branch of physics that developed in the early 20th century and onward or branches greatly influenced by early 20th century physics. Notable branches of modern physics include quantum mechanics, special relativity, and genera ...

, especially in quantum theory or

condensed matter physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid State of matter, phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and elec ...

, with an emphasis on efforts to use novel concepts from physics to understand patterns and dynamics elsewhere, especially in biology or in the human

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

. Key themes include, but are not limited to the (often overlooked) importance of

spontaneous order Spontaneous order, also named self-organization in the hard sciences, is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. The term "self-organization" is more often used for physical changes and biological processes, while "spontaneous ...

self-organization Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order and disorder, order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spont ...

in collective,

complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components that may interact with one another. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...

. All of his work aims to bring technical advances in modern science to a broad, non-technical audience, and to help stimulate the flow of ideas across disciplinary boundaries. He has been awarded, in June 2009, the Lagrange Prize in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, regarding science writing in the field of

complexity Complexity characterizes the behavior of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to non-linearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generally used to c ...

Books

# ''Ubiquity: The Science of History… or Why the World is Simpler Than We Think'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2000); short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. # ''Nexus: Small Worlds and the New Science of Networks'' (W.W. Norton & Co, New York, 2002); short-listed for the Aventis Science Writing Prize in 2003. # ''The Social Atom'' (Bloomsbury Press, New York, 2007). # ''Forecast: What Physics, Meteorology, and the Natural Sciences Can Teach Us About Economics '' ( Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London 2013)

References

External links

*
Mark Buchanan's blogTalk (June 2007) at Xerox PARC (on ideas of ''The Social Atom'').''New York Times'' column (May 2007)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buchanan, Mark 1961 births Living people 21st-century American physicists American science writers