Sam Arbesman

I’m a complexity scientist and writer.

I explore the nature and impact of scientific and technological change, informed by a background and expertise in complex systems. My training is in complexity science, computational biology, and applied mathematics. My scientific research has been cited widely and has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I am the author of THE MAGIC OF CODE (PublicAffairs, 2025), OVERCOMPLICATED: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension (Current/Penguin, 2016), and THE HALF-LIFE OF FACTS: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date (Current/Penguin, 2012). My popular writing has been published in a variety of outlets, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.