George Cowan Passes Away at 92

May / June 2012 UPDATE

IN THIS ISSUE

George Cowan passes away at 92 > From the editor 2 > Phylometabolic tree 2 George Cowan, SFI’s founding president and Image: Los Alamos > A-bomb’s legacy 2 a central figure in the history of transdisci- National Laboratory plinary science, passed away at his home on > SFI In the News 2 April 20 at the age of 92. > Book News 2 “George Cowan’s death is a huge loss to us > Summer education 3 all,” said SFI President Jerry Sabloff. “He was > Children’s exhibit 3 a wonderful person with a visionary under- > Achievements 3 standing of the nature and role of science in > SFI Online 3 the world today. He will be greatly missed by everyone associated with the Santa Fe Insti- > Advanced workshop 3 tute.” (See “Goodbye George” below) > Donor Jerry Murdock 4 Cowan was a scientist, academic, business- > Farmer to Oxford 4 man, and philanthropist. From 1982 to 1984 > Upcoming events 4 he was the central figure in founding the Institute. Although he preferred to conduct research, he accepted the invitation to be SFI’s first president, a position in which he the Soviets were in possession of a nuclear idea that grew into SFI’s transdisciplinary RESEARCH NEWS served from 1984 to 1991. He continued bomb. He later served on the Bethe Panel focus. He was among the first to advocate to serve on the Institute’s Board of Trustees that convinced government decision makers the quantitative study of complex adaptive until his death. the radiochemistry detected represented systems. Turning vicious weapons uses rather than peaceful pursuits. Cowan received a B.S. from Worcester He received the Enrico Fermi Award, the New cycles virtuous Polytechnic Institute in 1941. He did gradu- He worked at Los Alamos National Laborato- Mexico Academy of Science Distinguished ry from 1949 to 1988, serving as a scientist, Scientist Award, the Robert H. Goddard ate studies at Princeton, where he worked Movie makers and fiction writers have as a director of chemistry, as associate labo- Award, the E.O. Lawrence Award, and the under future Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner, long depicted the disruption and fall of Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal. In whose investigation of uranium confirmed civilizations. But in a few works of fiction, 1997 he was elected a fellow of the Ameri- the feasibility of the Fermi pile. like the classic “Foundation” series by can Academy of Arts and Sciences. He continued his nuclear research with the “A researcher and smasher Isaac Asimov, scientists develop models to Manhattan Project at the University of Chi- of atoms who also founded a As a scientist, Cowan studied nonlinear help predict and avoid societal calamities. dynamics, using mathematical equations to cago, Oak Ridge, Columbia University, and bank and supported opera.” SFI Professor Luis Bettencourt has been predict the behavior of complex systems. Los Alamos. Because he was transferred to awarded $500,000 by the Army Research He had a particularly strong commitment to various locations as a technological trouble- – New York Times Office to do something akin to Asimov’s one such complex system, the human brain, shooter for the effort (a result, he joked, of models, but as a very real technique to his being unmarried), he was among the very and the effects of early childhood experience ratory director of research, and as a senior meet humankind’s contemporary chal- few people with knowledge of the separate on human brain development. He helped laboratory fellow. lenges of environmental change, energy formulate and lead a major study using brain components of the bomb, kept apart for demand, infectious disease, and violence. security reasons. He was appointed to the White House Sci- imaging techniques to investigate children’s ence Council during the Reagan administra- brain and behavioral development. What brings such an idea out of science He joined the Carnegie Institute of Technol- tion. While serving in this capacity and facing fiction and into the realm of genuine ogy in 1946. He earned a Ph.D. from the Cowan was a founding director of Los Alamos problems involving interconnected aspects research, Luis says, is the rapid expansion Mellon College of Science in 1950. National Bank and was its chairman for 30 of science, policy, economics, environment, years. He was a patron of the arts and was an > more on page 4 Weeks after his arrival at Los Alamos Na- and more, he became an outspoken critic early board member of the Santa Fe Opera. tional Laboratory in 1949, he directed the of scientific fragmentation in academia and detection of radioactive fallout from samples government and a proponent of the inten- George’s wife of 65 years, Helen “Satch” collected near the Russian border indicating tional cross-fertilization of many fields – an Cowan, passed away in August 2011. Q RESEARCH NEWS Better abstraction Goodbye George: A father figure with a ‘pioneer’s eye’ for real networks For SFI Professor Cris Moore, current net- SFI invited those who knew George Cowan miss him but SFI remains as his heritage.” work theory is too abstract. to share their memories of him on the Insti- – Peter Schuster tute’s website. Here are selected excerpts. “All of us in the field know in our hearts Read them all, or submit your own, at “[Los Alamos National Bank] made it possible that real networks are much, much richer www.santafe.edu. for two generations of non-US scientists to than the way network theorists typically establish themselves in Northern New Mexico deal with them,” he says. “George told me about growing up during without a US credit history.” Image: Walter Fontana the Great Depression in Worcester, – Steen Rasmussen He is co-hosting a workshop at SFI May Massachusetts. [At his father’s grocery store] 17-19, “Power Grids as Complex Net- George had the job of making baloney “George was that rare father figure who works: Formulating Problems for Useful sandwiches for [the men] who were out of raised us kids with strict standards and Science and Science Based Engineering,” money and hungry…That was when George sometimes tough criticism, but also generous to explore how network mathematicians was twelve…He never stopped making those pockets, unquestioning moral and intellectual can make better sense of electrical power sandwiches.” – Sam Bowles support, a pioneer’s eye and taste, and most networks. of all the hope that we would keep trying “In his years of presidency he shaped SFI and to be bad and break the rules and do things While power networks offer particular made it what it is now: a great flag on the different from what had been done before.” challenges, Cris hopes lessons from the landscape of complexity research. We shall – Erica Jen > more on page 4 SFI IN THE NEWS BOOK NEWS In March in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, External Professor Eric Smith tracing the six Emergence and Archaeology of Wired, NPR, and other media, Jonah Lehrer, methods of carbon fixation seen in modern Collapse of Early the Southwest, author of Imagine, a new book about life back to a single ancestral form. Villages: Models Third Edition, creativity, cites SFI research suggesting that of Central Mesa by SFI External creativity is one natural outcome of urban liv- The Santa Fe New Mexican and KSFR’s Verde Archaeol- Professor Linda ing. But, the research points out, it comes at Santa Fe Radio Café covered the “Science ogy, co-edited by Cordell (School a cost – including expenses for energy use as On Screen” series in Santa Fe, a joint col- SFI External Profes- for Advanced well as an insatiable taste for “new things.” laboration of the Center for Contemporary sor Tim Kohler Research) and Arts and SFI during which Institute scien- (Washington State Maxine McBrinn, An essay in OpEd News on March 11 asks tists screen their favorite films and offer University) and provides a com- which economic perspective will inform U.S. eye-opening perspectives from their own Mark Varien, com- prehensive summary of the major themes financial reform, and traces the history of research and the world of science. pares results of agent-based modeling with and topics central to modern interpretation economic theory, including SFI’s founding the archaeological record, and examines and practice on the topic, and offers read- and its role in the advent of “complexity In the Huffington Post on April 17, SFI Ex- how climate change, population size, inter- ers the latest in current research, debates, economics.” ternal Professors Dan Rockmore and David personal conflict, resource depletion, and and topical syntheses, as well as increased Krakauer imagine a vastly different university changing social organization might have coverage of Paleoindian and Archaic peri- In April, the Huffington Post and of the future – decentralized, infused with contributed to dramatic shifts in ancestral ods and the Casas Grandes phenomenon. MSNBC covered publication of a study by information technologies, and rich in trans- Puebloan habitation of the Mesa Verde For advanced undergraduate and graduate SFI Omidyar Fellow Rogier Braakman and disciplinary, collaborative scholarship. region from 600 to 1280 A.D. courses, researchers, and general readers.

Nonlinearities From the editor RESEARCH NEWS George Cowan left us April 20. I didn’t know him well, but I know enough about Finding the roots and early branches on the tree of life him to understand that he is one of the giants on whose shoulders we at SFI stand. In a new paper, SFI Omidyar Fellow Rogier rickety assemblies whose parts were con- and that rewinding and replaying the evolu- There is hardly a philanthropic, scientific, Braakman and External Professor D. Eric stantly malfunctioning and breaking down,” tionary tape would lead to an irreconcilably or business organization in northern New Smith map the development of life-sustain- says Eric. “How can any metabolism be different tree of life. Mexico that wasn’t touched by him in a ing chemistry to the history of early life and sustained with such shaky support? The key significant way. If you can, spend a few trace six methods of carbon fixation back to is concurrent and constant redundancy.” “Mapping cell function onto genetic history minutes reading the memories posted by a single ancestral form. gives us a clear picture of the physiology that his SFI friends at www.santafe.edu. A great Once early cells had more refined enzymes led to the major foundational divergences of man. And thank you, George, for all of this. Carbon fixation – life’s mechanism for mak- and membranes, allowing greater control evolution,” says Rogier. “This highlights the ing carbon dioxide biologically useful – forms over metabolic chemistry, environmental central role of basic chemistry and physics in Here is the final paragraph of George’s New the biggest bridge between Earth’s non- driving forces directed life’s unfolding. These driving early evolution.” York Times obituary, which appeared online living chemistry and its living biosphere. All forces included changes in oxygen level and on April 24 and in print on April 26, and contemporary organisms that fix carbon do alkalinity, as well as minimization of the With the ancestral form uncovered and evolu- which I like very much: “[Edward Teller and so in one of six ways. These six mechanisms amount of energy (in the form of ATP) used tionary drivers pinned to branching points in George Cowan] had been part of a regular have overlaps, but it was previously unclear to create biomass. the tree, the researchers now want to make poker game at Los Alamos. Dr. Cowan said which of the six types came first, and how the study more mathematically formal and fur- he particularly liked to play with Dr. Teller their development interweaved with environ- In other words, they say, the environment ther analyze the early evolution of metabolism. ‘because he had a tendency to draw to mental and biological changes. drove major divergences in predictable ways inside straights’ — generally a losing hand.” – in contrast to the widely held belief that Their study was published April 18 in PLoS The authors used a method that creates chance dominated evolutionary innovation, Computational Biology. Q Congratulations to Doyne Farmer (see page “trees” of evolutionary relatedness based on 4). I do know Doyne, and his work epito- Ancestral form genetic sequences and metabolic traits. From (pre-LUCA?) mizes what’s useful about complex systems this, they were able to reconstruct the com- Archaea science. We can never fill his shoes, but plete early evolutionary history of biological Bacteria hopefully we’ll be able to fill the void with carbon fixation, relating all ways in which life O! something new. Energy today performs this function. Energy Redox One thing I’ve learned in 20 plus years of Aqui#cales science writing is that the ratio of repressed The earliest form of carbon fixation achieved Euryarcheota Proteobacteria a special kind of built-in robustness – not Firmicutes Alkalinity high school English teachers in any popula- O! tion is greater than you might think. You seen in modern cells – by layering multiple grammarians out there probably noted, in carbon-fixing mechanisms, they say. This redundancy allowed early life to compensate fact, how I used the word “hopefully” as a O! sentential adverb above. Save your gotcha for a lack of refined control over its internal O! Chloro"exi chemistry, and formed a template for the Cyanobacteria for another day. As of April 17 the Associ- O! ated Press Stylebook says this is an accept- later splits that created the earliest major Alkalinity able use (though the New York Times is branches in the tree of life. holding its ground). It’s the latest in the Crenarcheota The first major life-form split, for example, battle between English-language prescrip- came with the earliest appearance of tivists and descriptivists. You can probably oxygen on Earth, causing the ancestors of guess where I fall. I’m also adamant about blue-green algae and most other bacteria serial commas, but don’t get me started. to separate from the branch that includes Speaking of opinions, SFI Professor Cris Archaea, which, outside of bacteria, are the other major early group of single-celled Phylometabolic tree of carbon fixation. Each small black network represents a carbon-fixation pathway, and Moore has some strong ones. He’s also a the tree describes the evolutionary process that connects them. In red text are identified environmental mathematician who is fun to talk with… microorganisms. driving forces. Through integrating phylogenetics with metabolic constraints, phylometabolic analysis allows about math. One of his views is that net- a clear description down to the root of the tree (top center), and shows how carbon-fixation structured the work theory isn’t often applied effectively to “It seems likely that the earliest cells were deep history of life on Earth. real networks. The power grids workshop he and External Professor Raissa D’Souza are co-hosting at SFI this month might begin to RESEARCH NEWS address this gap (see page 1). Finally, the new title of this editor’s column May working group to explore the atomic bomb’s legacy is “Nonlinearities.” As always, I’m taking suggestions, ideas, gotchas, encourage- An SFI working group, “Legacies of the They’re coming together to discuss the issue ment, musings — even bizarre expressions Manhattan Project: A Case Study in the and answer questions.” of lunacy (you know who you are). Q Consequences of Conflict,” May 12-13 at SFI, will examine new information about the Several SFI researchers are examining conflict – John German, [email protected] project, review original records, and mine the in human and animal societies. The Manhat- memories of project participants to present a tan Project and subsequent arms race has local case study from this important period in emerged as a case study for understanding scientific history. conflict management and the implications CREDITS of conflict as a mechanism for evolutionary Topics include the Manhattan Project’s scien- change. Editor: John German tific legacy, including its influence on setting Contributors: Krista Zala, Rachel Miller, scientific agendas and subsequent develop- Participants in the meeting include Harold Larry O’Hanlon, Jenna Marshall, ments in physics and complex systems mod- Agnew, former director of Los Alamos; Emily Van Cleve, Robert Frederick eling; the project’s political legacy, including SFI External Professor Jessica Flack; Gregg Design & production: Michael Vittitow VIP observers lit up by the light of an atomic bomb the Cold War and the politics of funding Herken, author and Cold War political expert; VP for Outreach: Ginger Richardson during Operation Greenhouse, Enewetak Atoll, 1951. scientific research; and its philosophical and Nobel laureate and SFI Distinguished Fellow The SFI Update is published bimonthly cultural legacies. Murray Gell-Mann; Ellen Bradbury-Reid, by the Institute to keep its community The effort to develop the first atomic bomb Manhattan Project historian; and Gino Segre, informed. Please send comments or ques- united the greatest physics and engineering “We have no agenda other than to look at nuclear physicist and author of several books tions to John German at [email protected]. talent of a generation. The achievement not the issue,” says Ellen Bradbury-Reid, who is on the history of science. only had broad implications for humanity, co-organizing the event with SFI External Pro- Follow SFI online at it also shaped the way modern science is fessor Linda Cordell. “The panelists are not Follow this meeting live on Twitter at www.santafe.edu conducted and funded. here to present papers or push any agendas. #bomblegacy or at www.nucleardiner.com. Q ACHIEVEMENTS SFI Online The Betsy and Jesse in Computing Educator Award. The annual Multimedia content available at www.santafe.edu Fink Foundation has award is for educators that have dem- awarded SFI Profes- onstrated a commitment to encouraging Video: SFI Miller Scholar Rebecca Video: SFI Professor Jennifer Dunne sor Jennifer Dunne young women’s interests in computing. Newberger Goldstein considers intu- asks how networks can help us under- a $25,000 grant to ition as an essential part of our moral stand the role humans play in ecosys- support research SFI External Profes- and philosophical thinking. Source: SFI tems. Source: SFI Big Questions video into using ecological sor Joseph Traub 2012 Community Lecture networks to under- (Columbia University) Video: SFI President Jerry Sabloff stand environmental is among the key Video: SFI Omidyar Fellow Scott and Faculty Chair Doug Erwin change. The award, in part, will fund a pioneers of the infor- Ortman asks whether human society is describe how and why SFI asks Big working group at SFI later this year. mation age providing the result of human agency. Source: SFI Questions. Source: SFI Big Questions oral histories for the Big Questions video video The National Center Computer History for Women & Infor- Museum in Mountain Audio: SFI External Professor Tim Video: Author Brian Christian shares mation Technology View, Calif. His inter- Kohler describes how archeologists are his experiences as a “confederate” in an has given SFI Project viewer was Dr. Prakhakar Raghavan, head using computer modeling to learn why annual man vs. computer “Turing Test,” GUTS Principal Inves- of Yahoo! Labs. The interview is available the Puebloans left southwest Colorado offering insights on ways computers are tigator Irene Lee its online at www.computerhistory.org. in the late 1200’s. Source: Colorado reshaping what it means to be human. Award for Aspirations Public Radio Source: SFI 2012 Community Lecture

EDUCATION Summer programs: ‘Intense and profound science’

Many complexity scholars ﬁrst experience SFI through the Institute’s summer education programs, just as SFI Summer School Programs Manager John Paul Gonzales did almost four years ago.

“The SFI summer programs offer the most intense and profound science education experiences that I can imagine,” he says.

John Paul’s first exposure came through a chance encounter with the Complex Systems Summer School in 2008. “I walked to the John Miller (right of center) and REU students conduct an impromptu experiment in SFI’s kitchen. back of the room, and [External Professor] Liz Bradley was talking about applications of chaos theory,” he recalls. “It was such a The 2012 graduate workshop and the inaugu- CAMP runs July 8-23 at George Mason Uni- emerging theories concerning the chemical fascinating way of looking at the world that I ral advanced graduate workshop for program versity (GMU) in Fairfax, Virgina. and physical origins of life. They will be trained wanted to learn more.” alumni (see article below) take place June to use agent-based modeling programs and 17-30 at St. John’s. GUTS y Girls, an offshoot of SFI’s successful offered course units on topics covered in the The CSSS is a four-week program that intro- Growing Up Thinking Scientifically (GUTS) workshop. The workshop will be held June 25- SFI’s Research Experiences for Under- duces graduate students and postdoctoral program, in 2012 will run a two-week sum- 29 at the GMU Fairfax campus. fellows to a range graduates pairs young scientists with SFI mer program that puts New Mexico middle of topics in complex faculty mentors. Participants are encour- school girls in touch with female mentors For working professionals who want to systems science, in- aged to investigate complex social systems in science, technology, engineering, and incorporate complexity science into their cluding chaos theory, through a research project they design with mathematics. understanding of the global financial computation, and their mentors. crisis, the Institute is offering a three-day “The great thing about the GUTS y Girls networks. John Paul says the program is “a taste of symposium “The Science of Complexity: summer workshop is it allows girls to what it is to be an SFI postdoc. Students Understanding the Global Financial “It’s like drinking intensify their understanding of computer from around the country experience SFI’s Crisis.” The symposium, a collaboration from the fire hose,” science in a really supportive environment culture and what Santa Fe has to offer for a between SFI and the Krasnow Institute for he says, “but it allows that’s a lot of fun,” says SFI GUTS y Girls few months, and then we send them back to Advanced Study, will be held May 16-18 at people to see the program coordinator Kathryn Ugoretz. their home institutions with big ideas.” GMU’s Arlington, Virginia campus. Q John Paul Gonzales connections between “It gives them strong female mentors, fields. Once someone The 2012 REU program runs June 4-August and it’s a way for them to really deepen goes through the CSSS, they can pick up 10; participants live at St. John’s and pursue their understanding of what we work on anywhere in the SFI world.” their research at SFI. throughout the year.” EDUCATION

This year’s CSSS is June 3-30 at St. John’s For high school students enrolled in SFI’s The GUTS y Girls summer program will run in College in Santa Fe. Complexity and Modeling Program two sessions, June 4-15 at New Mexico State Delle Foundation (CAMP), “summer camp” will be a transfor- University in Las Cruces, and June 18-29 at SFI’s Graduate Workshop in Computa- mative experience. Based on previous school the Santa Fe Complex. to fund children’s tional Social Science, Modeling, and for students in the Santa Fe area, SFI’s CAMP Complexity offers students from economics now offers young scholars from around the Again this summer, the Institute is reaching museum exhibit and the social sciences a range of computa- nation a chance to learn complexity science out to future scientists through their science tional techniques they use to answer social from SFI scientists. Participants will attend teachers. In a teacher development work- A hands-on exhibit for children that focuses dynamics questions of their own design. This lectures on the fundamentals of chaos and shop titled “Understanding the Origins of on many of the complex systems addressed summer, participants also will work together complexity, gather ecological field data, Life: From Geochemistry to the Genetic by SFI scientists is in the initial planning stage to answer a question posed by SFI’s Business receive training in computer modeling, and Code,” high school teachers of biology, at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum. Network. pursue independent research projects. chemistry, and geology will learn about The Delle Foundation, an independent chari- table organization previously spearheaded by SFI’s late founding president George Cowan, has awarded a two-year, $150,000 grant to ‘An atmosphere where the students live their science’ the Santa Fe Children’s Museum to work with SFI scientists and the New Mexico Depart- For 18 years, the Institute has seeded the young field of compu- after the institutions themselves have died out. Another will ment of Cultural Affairs to create an exhibit tational social science with alumni of its Graduate Workshop in model influence processes that have appeared in political science and learning lab for children ages 9-12. Computational Social Science Modeling and Complexity. Summer literature in recent years. A third will examine cooperation and Students at New Mexico Highlands University 2012 marks the first time SFI will offer an advanced workshop for strife between ethnic groups, using data from a network of will help design the first exhibit, scheduled to past participants who wish to further develop their research. Zambian roads that have brought Chinese immigrants in contact open at the museum in 2013. with native populations. The advanced group will spend two weeks in Santa Fe, where “The learning lab and exhibit project will be they will share living quarters and pursue computational tech- “We gather a high quality group of students and create a sup- a gem in New Mexico and raise the profile niques to investigate complex social questions. By housing the portive research environment where this amazing group of of the Santa Fe Children’s Museum on the students together, coordinators John Miller and Scott Page (both colleagues is working hard on novel scientific ideas all the time,” national level,” says Anna Marie Tutera SFI External Professors) hope to encourage “an atmosphere where John says. “The social sciences have seen a rapid assimilation of Manriquez, the Museum’s outgoing executive the students live their science,” John says. the core ideas of complexity and computational modeling, often director who applied for the grant. driven by contributions from our former students.” Q One participant plans to investigate whether the rules and social George Cowan and SFI Trustee Bill Enloe will structures of institutions can influence people’s behaviors even be honored at the Museum’s annual gala on May 19. Q Jerry Murdock:Modelingsociety’s problems Doyne Farmer toINET@Oxford “Most of our leaders are not trained to arecon trained not of leaders our “Most them. to use learn will leaders of democracy functioning the and economy, our environment, improve the that could have help tools created searchers re SFI because Institute the supports He problems. complex makers to model decision- and teaching leaders on pends ceptualize these problems, let alone solve solve alone let problems, ceptualize these the late 1980s, will lead an interdisciplin an lead late will the 1980s, since at SFI research economics complexity led and has pioneered who aphysicist Doyne, Soros. said of development,” challenges wide-ranging the and employment, and jobs of sustainable creation the financial crises, systemic not least challenges, to many mitigate global needed is urgently “Fresh thinking in economics ference in Berlin. annual con 12center April INET duringthe interdisciplinary new major of the creation the announced Soros George founder INET (INET). Thinking Economic for New Institute the and University Century at Oxford 21st for the School Martin James the tween be acollaboration at INET@Oxford, program economics complexity the to lead chosen Farmer has been J. Doyne Professor SFI DO I NS N ID O E S R P FI R

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UPDATE

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