Tobias Galla

www.iop.org/physics-comm...

Opinion dynamics: Statistical physics and beyond Opinion dynamics, the study of how individual beliefs and collective public opinion evolve, is a fertile domain for applying statistical physics to complex social phenomena. Like physical systems, soc...

Review "Opinion dynamics: Statistical physics and beyond"
arxiv.org/abs/2507.11521

Lab experiments, data, models, analytical/computational tools. 93 pages, >1k references.

With Fabian Baumann, David Garcia, Gerardo Iñiguez, Márton Karsai, Jan Lorenz, Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron. Led by Michele Starnini

<<< allows us to analytically calculate the power spectrum of oscillations. We explore when these approximations break down and provide recommendations for their use.

<<< We describe multiple levels of approximation (rate eps, piecewise-deterministic processes, SDEs), and show that the chemical Langevin equation can include a noise representing transcriptional bursting. This decreases computation times and >>>

Efficient approximations of transcriptional bursting effects on the dynamics of a gene regulatory network

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

(with Jochen Kursawe, Antoine Moneyron)

Transcriptional bursting induces oscillations otherwise not present, or magnifies existing oscillations. >>>

4 postdoc positions in complex systems at IFISC, Palma de Mallorca. Call open until 20/10/25, but positions will be filled starting immediately. If interested, please apply now. Candidates must be EU citizens.

Breaking co-existence: zealotry vs. nonlinear social impact We study how zealotry and nonlinear social impact affect consensus formation in the nonlinear voter model, evolutionary games, and the partisan voter model. In all three models, consensus is an absorb...

Breaking co-existence: zealotry vs nonlinear social impact

(w Chris Kitching, Lucía Ramirez, @maxisanmiguel.bsky.social)

arxiv.org/abs/2505.21407

Zealotry breaks coexistence in voter models, partisan voter models, and evolutionary games. We show that sublinear social impact can prevent this.

181.71 million km, sorry

“It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”

(Watson & Crick 1953)

“[...] nonperiodic solutions are ordinarily unstable with respect to small modifications, so that slightly differing initial states can evolve into considerably different states."

"The feasibility of very-long-range weather prediction is examined in the light of these results.”

(Lorenz 1963)

“It is worth noting that an essential feature of the type of theory which has been described in this note is the prediction of incomplete multiplets of scalar and vector bosons.”

(Higgs 1964)

“In this paper, we present Google, a prototype of a large-scale search engine […].”

(Brin & Page 1998)

“We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.”

(Watson & Crick 1953)

"The small boys came early for the hanging", this is the opening line of @kenfollettauthor.bsky.social's Pillars of the Earth.

Does anyone have examples of exceptional opening lines of scientific papers (or any other memorable quotes)?

I give a few below. Other examples welcome.

Proliferating active disks with game dynamical interaction We study a system of self-propelled, proliferating finite-size disks with game-theoretical interactions, where growth rates depend on local population composition. We analyze how these interactions in...

"Proliferating active disks with game dynamical interaction" (with A. Almodóvar, C. López)

arxiv.org/abs/2503.02555

Self-population enhances mixing in coexistence games, speeds up extinction in coordination games, and reduces the invasion probability of a beneficial mutant.

Predictability of temporal network dynamics in normal ageing and brain pathology Spontaneous brain activity generically displays transient spatiotemporal coherent structures, which can selectively be affected in various neurological and psychiatric pathologies. Here we model the f...

Predictability of temporal network dynamics in normal ageing and brain pathology

(preprint with Lisa Caligiuri, Massimiliano Zanin, @wetuad.bsky.social, and others)

arxiv.org/abs/2502.16557

<< how many opinions are present in the population. We also show that there is a transition between a phase which the system is mostly in consensus (low innovation rate), and another phase in which consensus is rare (high innovation rate). On networks, degree heterogeneity affects this balance.

Analysis of a voter model with an evolving number of opinion states In traditional voter models, opinion dynamics are driven by interactions between individuals, where an individual adopts the opinion of a randomly chosen neighbor. However, these models often fail to ...

A voter model with an evolving number of opinion states
(with Jeehye Choi, Byungjoon Min)

arxiv.org/abs/2502.14696

We study a VM in which new opinion states can emerge in the dynamics. Adapting methods previously used in theoretical evolutionary biology we compute >>

The joys of science. (This is one single resubmission, not the 11th time that we resubmit this manuscript).

YouTube video by Veritasium The SAT Question Everyone Got Wrong

Do mathematical paradoxes, like the Monty Hall problem, blow your mind? Well, they're for beginners... Today I discovered there's a paradox, that you can recreate yourself anytime, way crazier. Welcome to the Coin Rotation Paradox 🤯
youtu.be/FUHkTs-Ipfg?...
via @veritasium.bsky.social

🚨 Annual IMPRS Call for Doctoral Positions at MPI-EvolBio 🚨
🎓 Fully-funded 3.5-year doctoral projects available in diverse research areas!
#PhD #ResearchOpportunities #IMPRS #Science evolbio.mpg.de/3801127/annu...

<<< boundary of the action simplex: a fraction of the actions are played with vanishing probability.

We also calculate the critical exploration rate that guarantees convergence to a unique fixed point.

[To be published in AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) 2025]

Asymptotic Extinction in Large Coordination Games We study the exploration-exploitation trade-off for large multiplayer coordination games where players strategise via Q-Learning, a common learning framework in multi-agent reinforcement learning. Q-L...

Asymptotic Extinction in Large Coordination Games

(with Desmond Chan, Bart De Keijzer, Stefanos Leonardos, Carmine Ventre)

arxiv.org/abs/2412.15461

We show that, for large random coordination games, Q-Learning converges to a Quantal Response Equilibria near the >>>

Physics stories ⚛️

Pauli lecturing

In one of his lectures, Pauli said of an assertion: "That's trivial". A student remarked: "I don't really understand why that's trivial." Pauli then left the lecture hall without saying a word. When he hadn't returned after five minutes,

1/2

A cross-disciplinary research framework at institution level and beyond - Nature Communications Rethinking and restructuring cross-disciplinary research requires innovative models and the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems (IFISC) stands as a powerful example. Since its...

🚀 Cross-disciplinary research is shaping the future! Discover how IFISC has become a global model, breaking silos and fostering innovation in complex systems.

🌐 Read more in @naturecomms.bsky.social: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#ComplexSystems #ScienceInnovation #CrossDisciplinarity

<<< Analysing synthetic graph dynamics we show that the measures can recover and estimate dynamical fingerprints even when node labels are not available. We validate the methods using empirical temporal networks from which node labels have been removed.

Characterising the dynamics of unlabelled temporal networks Networks model the architecture backbone of complex systems. The backbone itself can change over time leading to what is called `temporal networks'. Interpreting temporal networks as trajectories in g...

Characterising the dynamics of unlabelled temporal networks

(with Annalisa Caligiuri, @wetuad.bsky.social)

arxiv.org/abs/2412.14864

We use graph invariants to characterise time series of unlabelled networks, focusing on autocorrelation functions & sensitivity to initial conditions. >>>