by Francesca Tria
Abstract: Innovation, the emergence and diffusion of something new (new technologies, new genes, new behaviors) drives the evolution of human society as well as of biological systems. A general concept that applies to innovation and the emergence of novelties, is what Kauffman called the expansion of the adjacent possible. By creating fresh opportunities, one novelty can pave the way for others, enlarging the space of possibilities in a self-consistent way.
I will present a recent work aimed at grounding the notion of adjacent possible on real data, by the definition of quantitative measures and the development of a suitable mathematical framework.