In this brief survey, I discuss some examples of the fascinating phenomenon of universality in complex systems, in which universal macroscopic laws of nature emerge from a variety of different microscopic dynamics. This phenomenon is widely observed empirically, but the rigorous mathematical foundation for universality is not yet satisfactory in all cases.

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© 2012 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
2012
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