Dietrich Stauffer is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Cologne

University. His main research interests are Statistical Physics,

biologically motivated computer simulations (ageing), Sociophysics and
Econophysics such as formulating microscopic models for stock
markets. He has published over 600 papers and six books.

Complexity studies assemblies of many constituents where

the behaviour of the whole cannot be easily foreseen from the
properties of the single constituent.
In most of the world, average life expectancy is rising, while the
average number of children per women goes down. We made
simulations ignoring the historic peculiarities of a specific
country due, e.g. to World War II. For a country like Germany,
increasing retirement age by two years and taking in immigrants
at a rate of 0.4 percent of the population per year will reduce the
problems in two (and more) decades from now. Poland has more
time to think about other solutions such as increasing the birth
rate. Algeria is close to a stationary age distribution while the
Palestinian territories will have a young and growing population
for several decades.
These simulations are part of many studies applying
physics concepts outside of physics, as did Empedokles 2500
years ago or Quetelet in the 19th century. For instance, the
Schelling model of urban segregation (1971) is a complicated
zero-temperature Ising model on a square lattice.
D Stauffer, S Moss de Oliveira, PMC de Oliveira, JSS Martins;
Biology, Sociology, Geology by Computational Physicists;
Elsevier, Amsterdam 2006

Extrapolation of the status quo (top

curve) for the ratio of old plus young
people to working-age people. The
middle and lower curves assume an
increase of the retirement age after
2010 and a controlled immigration of
less than 0.4 percent per year. In the
top and middle curves the children
are added to the old people, while
they are ignored in the bottom curve.