This episode breaks down the 'Quantifying the Rise and Fall of Complexity in Closed Systems: the Coffee Automaton' scientific paper, which investigates the concept of complexity in closed systems. The authors explore the idea that complexity in closed systems, such as a cup of coffee and cream, increases at first and then decreases as the system approaches equilibrium. To quantify this pattern, they use a simple cellular automaton model representing the mixing of two liquids. The authors then introduce several measures of complexity, comparing their strengths and weaknesses and proposing a measure based on the Kolmogorov complexity of a smoothed representation of the automaton's state, which they call “apparent complexity.” The paper presents numerical evidence suggesting that complexity in the simulated coffee cup system does indeed reach a maximum before declining, and they raise the challenge of proving this behaviour analytically.

Audio : (Spotify) https://open.spotify.com/episode/0lZYT5USk8XOZDH6EaT8o1?si=32YB7KLCSiiMt6DlVHhJmA

Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1405.6903