Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel Laureate in physics who discovered the particle quarks, passed away in Santa Fe on May 24th 2019. So, another giant in complexity science is gone, after we had lost John Holland in 2015.
I had met with the father of quarks three times. The first time it was at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI). I was still a PhD student, and it was near the end of my PhD study at the University of Michigan. I attended a meeting at SFI on stability of economic systems, fortunately with professor John Holland, the father of Genetic Algorithm . It was my first visit to SFI, the epicenter of complexity study, and as a student of complexity, I approached Santa Fe much like a pilgrim.
During this visit I also got to meet some other legends in Mitchell Waldrop’s popular book Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos. I read Waldrop’s book again and realized that Murray Gell-Mann had a vision on sustainability even back then. In his vision a sustainable human society is adaptable, robust, and resilient to lesser disasters, can learn from mistakes and allows for growth in the quality of human life instead of just the quantity of it. He said the transformation to a sustainable society requires understanding economic, social, and political forces that are deeply intertwined. That was exactly what I was trying to do with my dissertation. He had helped set up the World Resource Institute. From Waldrop’s book I also rediscovered Brian Arthur’s insightful remarks on policy which would become part of a new course Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and Policy I taught later at George Mason University.
About my pilgrimage to SFI, I will say no more today but attach a piece I wrote in 2010 immediately following my visit.
A pilgrimage to SFI
So, I have made my pilgrimage to SFI
A bright place on a bright hill, from where
The bright ideas of some bright people
Have brightened my mind
As a Buddhist to Bodh Gaya
A Muslim to Mecca
A Christian to Jerusalem
Sitting between the fathers of CAS, in a conference room
I become lost in some kind of aura
While the father of Quarks quickly relates my Chinese name to Japanese
“It’s a square plus a cross,” he says
The father of Genetic Algorithm jokes (as he always does)
“She is a peasant.” (Tian means agricultural field)
But the father of Q says I am a good-looking peasant (which makes me laugh)
It seemed as if just yesterday
Those legends in Waldrop’s Complexity world gathered here
Launching a scientific journey on CAS
But when I watch Don Farmer (one of the legends) on the podium
Who is talking about regulation and stability of the economy
I have to believe
Twenty five years have passed
In twenty five years, people do age, and things change
But the spirit remains
The father of GA still has the highest volume of voice in the room
His remarks are sharp (just as his eyes)
The father of Q still has beautiful dense curly hair (despite it is gray)
His head is up and face alive when it comes across names
Like Faraday, Maxwell, Albert
Not just them though
The Yale economist, the Stanford demographer, the UCLA neurologist
The Harvard biologist, the UM archeologist…
The staff members, even the waitress in a restaurant
And those businessmen from Intel, Lockheed, Citicorp…
All are enthusiastic (and interesting too) –
Enthusiastic about CAS
So twenty five years have passed, how much progress have we made? I ask
It’s very little, the father of Q says
We need LOTS LOTS of people to work on it, he continues
And we need theorists besides data mining, the father of GA adds
Let us get on and carry on what the legends have begun
Let us march on, as we must
No matter how hard it is
P.S.
Retracing footprints of the legends
I drive up the mesa from Santa Fe to Los Alamos
Stopping at the Valley of the Rio Grande, I watch
Sangre de Cristo Mountains above and far
As the legends did
The father of GA tells me
Sangre means blood and Rio is river
Rereading Waldrop’s Complexity
I realize
Twenty five years ago, the father of Q
Who helped set up World Resources Institute
already had a vision on sustainability
which is exactly what my dissertation is about
I must study hard to get my “union card”
Luckily sitting next to Cormac McCarthy at breakfast
I get to have a small conversation with the Pulitzer winner writer
who said it is more important to be good
than it is to be smart
which I can’t agree more
And he looks genuine and surprisingly gentle
Thus my pilgrimage to SFI goes beyond satisfaction
When I visited SFI the second time to attend a workshop on Gateways to Emergent Behavior in Science and Society, I already got my “union card” and became an assistant professor with the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason. I co-chaired a session Toward a Habitable Planet. My mind at that time was very much occupied by the mystery of the brain and had an aha moment on a walk. At lunch, I asked Murray Gell-Mann what he thought about the brain and the mind. He spoke to me candidly that he had not thought deeply into this matter.
My last encounter with the father of Quarks was in Singapore at a meeting More is Different organized by the Complexity Institute at Nanyang Technological University. At the reception he recognized me sitting at a table while walking out on the corridor and stopped to say hello. As usual his dense, gray curly hair seemed to contain wisdom and whimsy, but I noticed his health was deteriorating and felt sad. I didn’t want to burden him with long, serious conversations.
Just a few days ago, at the National Portrait Gallery I saw a small photo of him in an exhibition titled In Mid-Sentence among a collection of photos of politicians, artists, and entertainment stars and wondered how he was doing. I thought the gallery should put on better photos of him. Much has been said and I don’t need to add on anything about how great he was as a physicist, or what a broad and fine intellect he had. He had come across my mind always as charming and cool.
In fact many scientists are charming and cool in some way, but this side of scientists is unseen to the public. The Portrait Gallery had another exhibition American Cool several years ago. It included images of politicians, artists, and entertainment stars but not a single scientist. Maybe I should propose to the Portrait Gallery to set up an exhibition Scientist Cool.