Chapter 7 Chapter Two

A month after his ill-fated trip to Berkeley, on a sunny California day in April 1987, Brian Arthur was traversing the Stanford campus when he was startled to see a bicycle jerk to a stop in front of him.A famous figure in tracksuit, tie and an old white helmet straddles the car. "Brian, I was just about to call you." Kenneth Arrow stopped him. It's Arlo.Arthur immediately became alert.To be precise, it wasn't that he was afraid of Ah Luo.Yes, to a large extent, Arrow was the initiator of highly mathematical economics, and it was this highly mathematical economics that Arthur opposed.But Arthur knew that Arrow was an amiable and open-minded person, and he liked nothing more than a hearty academic debate.He's a guy who can still be your friend after he's critiqued your arguments to pieces.But how do you say it?Talking to Arrow was like talking to the Pope, and it was this that made Arthur feel a little apprehensive.Arrow won the Nobel Prize more than ten years ago and is probably the most outstanding economist in the world.At sixty-five, Arrow's mind was still lightning fast, and he was said to be impatient with hasty reasoning.As soon as he walked into the room, he could change the atmosphere of an academic discussion: the speaker began to feel like walking on eggshells, the audience stopped joking and straightened up, and everyone focused on the issue under discussion, with extreme caution. Think carefully about your questions and comments.Because no one wants to act like an idiot in front of Ah Ro.

"Oh, hello," said Arthur. Ah Luo obviously has something urgent to do.He told Arthur hurriedly that he was helping a small New Mexico institute organize a seminar for economists and physicists.The workshop will be held later this summer.He was in charge of inviting ten economists for this seminar.Condensed matter physicist Phil Anderson was responsible for inviting ten physicists. "Could you come to this seminar and come up with a paper on morphological locking?" he asked. "Of course." Arthur said immediately.Morph lock?What the hell is form locking?Was Arrow talking about his work on form lock and increasing returns?Did Arrow even know about his work on increasing returns? "Well, where is this research institute?"

"In Santa Fe, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains." Arrow replied.He got back on his bike, said a hasty farewell, promised to send some information to Arthur at once, and rode away.Arrow rode far enough along the palm-shaded avenues of the Stanford campus that Arthur could still see his white helmet. Arthur has been looking at the back of Ah Luo riding away, trying to figure out what exactly he promised just now?He couldn't figure out what surprised him even more: Physicists wanting to talk to economists?Or did Ah Ro want to talk to him? A few weeks later, one day in May 1987, Arthur received a call from Santa Fe.The caller introduced himself softly as George Cowan.Cowan thanked Arthur on the phone for agreeing to come to the Economist's seminar this fall.He said he and his colleagues took the workshop very seriously.The Santa Fe Institute is a small private institution founded by physicist Mari Gell-Mann and others to study various aspects of complex systems.The so-called aspects of complex systems refer to everything from condensed matter physics to society as a whole, including anything with many interacting factors inside.The institute has no faculty and no students, but instead strives to create the widest possible network of researchers among researchers.Economists are an important link in this network.

Cowan said his real intention in calling Arthur was that Ken Arrow suggested that the Santa Fe Institute invite Arthur as a visiting researcher.In other words, Arthur could come to Santa Fe a few weeks before the seminar and live at the institute for a few weeks after the seminar.That way, he has time to work and discuss with other researchers who live at the institute.Is he interested in it? "Of course I'm interested," said Arthur.Come to Santa Fe for six weeks in the fall, and you don't have to pay for it yourself.why not?In addition, he had to admit that Santa Fe, a strong academic firepower network, left a deep impression on him.Gell-Mann was also a Nobel laureate, the third Nobel laureate Arthur had heard of being associated with Santa Fe after Arrow and Anderson.Gell-Mann is the founder of the theory of "quarks".Quarks are the smallest particles that move inside protons and neutrons.Arthur still didn't quite understand what the "complex system" this old Wen was talking about, but the whole thing sounded crazy enough to pique his interest.

"Oh, by the way," said Arthur, "no one has mentioned your name to me yet. What do you do at the Santa Fe Institute?" There was a pause on the other end of the phone, and then there was a cough. "I'm the director," Cowan said.