Seven ideas. Seven simulations — embedded directly in the text. One argument that runs through all of them. Each tool in this collection appears in the reading at the moment the argument needs it. Read this first, then return to the instruments individually.
Begin reading →The Pendulum Simulator
From predictable swing to deterministic chaos. A single pendulum and a double pendulum — the same physics, a completely different world.
Attractors and Chaos
Many natural and social systems do not behave the way we expect. Small changes trigger large consequences — suddenly, not gradually. Three parameters, five scenarios, one tipping point that never appears in your dashboard.
Network Science Simulator
Topology, diffusion, centrality, weak ties, and cascades. Five lenses on how structure shapes what can spread, stick, or collapse.
Polarisation Dynamics
Opinion landscapes, echo chambers, attraction-repulsion forces, and interventions. Four tabs on how social systems pull apart — and what might hold them.
Conflict System Dynamics
The programme reduced conflict. It also quietly built dependency, eroded local legitimacy, and left the rights dispute that drove the conflict entirely untouched. When the funding ended, the system had less capacity to hold itself together than before the intervention arrived. Seven variables, five scenarios, one structural irony — and the question most log frames never ask. Read the case brief here.
Three Body Problem
When Newton wrote his laws of motion, he thought all the mysteries were solved. A few years later french mathematician Henri Poincaré proved him wrong. How determnistic equations can still remain unsolvalble
Social Bifurcations
When Societies Bifurcate explores how a single parameter — the intensity of social reinforcement — can push a community from stable equilibrium through cycles of polarisation into deterministic chaos, using the mathematics of the logistic map. Grounded in Coleman, Vallacher & Nowak's dynamical systems research on intractable conflict, it shows why some conflicts resist every intervention — and what the bifurcation diagram reveals about where peacebuilders actually have leverage.
How to use these tools
Each tool is self-contained and runs in your browser — no installation, no account. They are designed for facilitation and reflection, not prediction. The point is not to find the right answer but to make assumptions visible.
About SSC
The School of Systems and Complexity trains practitioners to think and act in complex environments. We work across governance, peacebuilding, and organisational change. Learn more →