Diffusive Spreading in Nature, Technology and Society

What do the movements of molecules and the migration of humans have in common? How does the functionality of our brain tissue resemble the flow of traffic in New York City? How can understanding the spread of ideas, rumors, and languages help us tackle the spread a pandemic? This book provides an illuminating look into these seemingly disparate topics by exploring and expertly communicating the fundamental laws that govern the spreading and diffusion of objects. A collection of leading scientists in disciplines as diverse as epidemiology, linguistics, mathematics, and physics discuss various spreading phenomena relevant to their own fields, revealing astonishing similarities and correlations between the objects of study―be they people, particles, or pandemics.

This updated and expanded second edition of an award-winning book introduces timely coverage of a subject with the greatest societal impact in recent memory―the global fight against COVID-19. Winner of the 2019Literature Prize of the German Chemical Industry Fund and brainchild of the international and long-running Diffusion Fundamentals conference series, this book targets an interdisciplinary readership, featuring an introductory chapter that sets the stage for the topics discussed throughout. Each chapter provides ample opportunity to whet the appetite of those readers seeking a more in-depth treatment, making the book also useful as supplementary reading in appropriate courses dealing with complex systems, mass transfer, and network theory.

Chapter “Neolithic Transitions: Diffusion of People or Diffusion of Culture?” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Armin Bunde studied Physics at the universities in Giessen and Stuttgart (PhD 1974). After postdoc periods in Saarbrücken, Antwerp, and Konstanz he was awarded a Heisenberg fellowship in 1983. In 1984 he received the Carl-Wagner prize.  After extended research stays in Boston, Paris, and Ramat-Gan he became professor for Theoretical Physics at Hamburg University in 1987 and full chair of Theoretical  Physics  at Giessen University in 1993. His research activities have been dedicated to many facets of  interdisciplinary research, including diffusion in disordered materials, long-range correlations in nature, extremes in financial markets, and climate variability, and he co-authored several books on these topics.