The Physics of the Unexpected: New Study Decodes Sudden Failures

🚨 Breakthrough in understanding abrupt phase transitions! 🚨

A new study led by Prof. Aviad Frydman and collaborators uncovers the hidden dynamics behind sudden system collapses, like blackouts or market crashes, using superconducting networks as a model.

The team discovered that these abrupt transitions aren't just triggered by external shocks. Instead, they're driven by internal, spontaneous, and long-living cascading events, similar to how a single infection can trigger a pandemic. These cascades follow precise scaling laws and occur over surprisingly long timeframes, offering early warning signs before a full system collapse.

Why does this matter? Because it gives us a quantifiable way to measure a system’s resilience and potentially anticipate catastrophic failures in everything from critical infrastructure to ecological systems.

This is a major leap forward in statistical physics and complex systems, and it could reshape how we understand vulnerability and stability across disciplines.

🔗 Read the full article in Nature Communications: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61127-z