Wednesday April 29, 3:30pm — PAA 102
Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies
César Hidalgo
Director, Macro Connections Group, MIT Media Lab
ABSTRACT
The universe is made of energy, matter and information; but
information is what makes the universe interesting. Without
information, the universe would lack the shapes, structures, and order
that gives the universe both its beauty and complexity. But where does
information comes from and what are the natural, social, and economic
mechanisms that help information grow? In this talk I will describe
the growth of physical order—or information—from atoms to
economies by explaining the physical mechanisms that allow order to
exist, and the social and economic mechanisms that allow order to
prevail in our society and economy.
BIO
César A. Hidalgo heads the Macro Connections group at The MIT
Media Lab and is also the ABC Career Development Professor of Media
Arts and Sciences at MIT. Hidalgo's work focuses on understanding the
evolution of information in natural, social, and economic systems, and
on the development of big data visualization engines designed to make
available unwieldy volumes of data. Hidalgo's academic publications
have been cited more than 5,000 times and his visualization engines
have received more than 5 million visits. He is the author of Why
Information Grows (Penguin UK, Basic Books US, Forthcoming June 2,
2015) and the co-author of The Atlas of Economic Complexity (MIT
Press).
