Operads for “Systems of Systems”

“Systems of systems” is a fashionable buzzword for complicated systems that are themselves made of complicated systems, often of disparate sorts. They’re important in modern engineering, and it takes some thought to keep them from being unmanageable. Biology and ecology are full of systems of systems.

David Spivak has been working a lot on operads as a tool for describing systems of systems. Here’s a nice programmatic talk advocating this approach:

• David Spivak, Operads as a potential found...