Consensus and Clustering in Opinion Formation

Todd Kapitula, Calvin College

Ideas that challenge the status quo either evaporate and are forgotten, or eventually become the new status quo. An ODE model was developed by Strogatz et al. for the propagation of one idea moving through one group of a large number of interacting individuals (a "city").  The Strogatz model was extended to include interacting multiple cities by a group of undergraduate students at SUMMER@ICERM 2016 (Brown University). The one and two city models are analyzed to determine the circumstances under which there can be consensus. The case of three or more cities is analyzed to determine when, and under what conditions, clustering occurs. Preliminary results will be presented.

Refreshments precede the talk at 3:30 p.m. in NH 282.