November 10th, 2010
Building E - Room 1
12.30 p.m.
 

Seth Lloyd
Extreme Quantum Information Theory (xQIT), MIT

Because gravitational energy is negative, self-gravitating systems are susceptible to runaway instabilities such as gravitational collapse. Financial systems also possess a kind of negative `energy' in the form of debt. This talk presents a simple network model of how energy/money distributes itself through a system that allow negative energy or debt.
The model identifies a phase transition in such networks: when gravitational or financial systems pass through this phase transition, they become unstable.
I identify the mathematical conditions that give rise both to bankruptcy and to black holes.