Steven Strogatz

About

Steven Strogatz is the Susan and Barton Winokur Distinguished Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Mathematics and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University. His academic interests encompass applied mathematics, with a focus on dynamical systems applied to physics, biology, and social science. His early work involved mathematical biology, exploring problems such as the geometry of supercoiled DNA, the dynamics of the human sleep-wake cycle, the topology of chemical waves, and the collective behavior of biological oscillators like swarms of fireflies. In the 1990s, his research concentrated on nonlinear dynamics and chaos, particularly in coupled oscillators found in lasers, superconducting Josephson junctions, and crickets, often collaborating closely with experimentalists. More recently, his work has expanded into areas such as social networks and complex systems, including the small-world phenomenon, crowd synchronization effects like the wobbling of London's Millennium Bridge, and the dynamics of structural balance in social systems. Beyond research, Strogatz is passionate about communicating mathematics to the public, having written columns for the New York Times, authored books like 'The Joy of x' and 'Infinite Powers,' and hosted a podcast called 'The Joy of Why,' aimed at exploring big questions in math and science.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Combinatorics
• Quantum mechanics
• Distributed computing
• Geometry
• Physics
• Mathematical physics
• Computer network
• Mathematical analysis

Selected publications

• Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos

  2024-01-03 · 193 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  The goal of this third edition of Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering is the same as previous editions: to provide a good foundation - and a joyful experience - for anyone who’d like to learn about nonlinear dynamics and chaos from an applied perspective. The presentation stresses analytical methods, concrete examples, and geometric intuition. The theory is developed systematically, starting with first-order differential equations and t…

  PublisherDOI

• Fifty years of ‘More is different’

  Nature Reviews Physics · 2022-07-04 · 45 citations

  review1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Kuramoto model on a sphere: Explaining its low-dimensional dynamics with group theory and hyperbolic geometry

  Chaos An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science · 2019 · 39 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  We study a system of $N$ interacting particles moving on the unit sphere in $d$-dimensional space. The particles are self-propelled and coupled all to all, and their motion is heavily overdamped. For $d=2$, the system reduces to the classic Kuramoto model of coupled oscillators; for $d=3$, it has been proposed to describe the orientation dynamics of swarms of drones or other entities moving about in three-dimensional space. Here we use group theory to explain the recent discovery that the model…

  DOI

• Designing temporal networks that synchronize under resource constraints

  Nature Communications · 28 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Being fundamentally a non-equilibrium process, synchronization comes with unavoidable energy costs and has to be maintained under the constraint of limited resources. Such resource constraints are often reflected as a finite coupling budget available in a network to facilitate interaction and communication. Here, we show that introducing temporal variation in the network structure can lead to efficient synchronization even when stable synchrony is impossible in any static network under…

  DOI

• A global synchronization theorem for oscillators on a random graph

  Chaos An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science · 2022 · 25 citations

  and p > 0.011 17 is globally synchronizing.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• RTG: Dynamics, Probability, and Partial Differential Equations in Pure and Applied Mathematics

  NSF · $2.5M · 2017–2024

• Nonlinear Dynamics of Oscillator Networks

  NSF · $401k · 2015–2019

• Mathematical Biology: Nonlinear Dynamics of Oscillator Networks

  NSF · $524k · 2004–2008

Frequent coauthors

• Renato Mirollo

  Boston College

  44 shared

• M. E. J. Newman

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  24 shared

• Duncan J. Watts

  University of Pennsylvania

  22 shared

• Bertrand Ottino-Löffler

  17 shared

• Wouter‐Jan Rappel

  University of California, San Diego

  16 shared

• Guillermo H. Goldsztein

  14 shared

• Kurt Wiesenfeld

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  13 shared

• P. C. Matthews

  CIC nanoGUNE

  13 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Applied Mathematics

  Harvard University

  1986

• M.A., Mathematics

  University of Cambridge

  1986

• B.A., Mathematics

  University of Cambridge

  1982

• A.B., Mathematics

  Princeton University

  1980

Awards & honors

• Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow
• Cornell mathematician featured in Netflix film
• Mathematician Steven Strogatz receives national award for sc…
• Strogatz named finalist for Royal Society prize
• Strogatz, Bethe research papers named to top-50 list

Similar researchers at Cornell University

• Daniel Sternh-58
• Anil Nerodeh-40
• Robert Connellyh-33