Progam, first steps

This is the blog that will account of the experiences, mostly scientific, of the Nordita (Nordic Insititute for Theoretical Physics, Stockholm, Sweden, www.nordita.org) scientific program "Statistical Mechanics of Distributed Information Systems".

This program will be attended by a mixed crowd of theoretical physicists and computer, network, and communication scientists. In other words, it is cross-disciplinary. Recall that Sweden and the neighboring Finland are the host countries for the two big mobile/cell phone firms Ericsson and Nokia, and that Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, is a Finn... (and Skype is from Sweden, and IRC from Finland for that matter). The use of physics to describe collective and self-organized phenomena is extending over the boundaries of scientific disciplines, as you maybe can see.

The program will last four weeks, and consists of informal interactions of scientists convened in Stockholm plus a workshop with more participants around the 14th to 16th of May. It follows on the steps of a similar initiative at the Kavli Insitute for Theoretical Physics, China in Beijing in March-April of 2008.

I am eagerly waiting for this occasion, together with my co-convenor Erik Aurell (KTH, Stockholm) and we would like to acknowledge the support of Nordita at this early stage.

Mikko Alava (HUT, Helsinki, Finland)