Stability and Instability

Key to Understanding Upheavals, Turning Points, and Transitions

8th Programme (since 2021)

Change, turning points and upheavals accompany us and affect almost all aspects of everyday life. They affect physical processes as well as major social currents. A stable state constantly reacts to changes in its input variables. If the state is unstable, then new transition states emerge, which in turn are unstable and finally transition asymptotically or aperiodically into a new stable state. Sometimes the new state is periodically oscillating or even chaotic.

The phenomenon of the transition from one stable to another stable state can be found in many areas of science. It is therefore a worthwhile goal to uncover the similarities or differences between these phenomena with the help of different scientific approaches. In addition to researching exciting questions in the respective disciplines, transdisciplinary knowledge on this topic is also developed in the WIN-Kolleg that is not offered in any other research funding and, in particular, requires the academy as a scientific home.

WIN Projects