What interests Professor Bak is life. So he studies grains of sand. And the cars that make up traffic. He looks at the parts to understand the whole. Say goodbye to a nice, steady, equilibrium perspective, says Professor Bak.
Equilibrium equals death.
Things do not rock along smoothly, change in small increments. Change is catastrophic. We must learn to adapt because we cannot predict. That s where interesting things happen, he says. That requires a very different way of thinking.