Most scientists will characterize complexity as the result of one or more factors out of three: (i) high dimensionality, (ii) interaction networks, and (iii) nonlinearity. High dimensionality alone need not give rise to complexity. The best known cases come from linear algebra: To determine the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a large quadratic matrix, for example, is complicated but not complex. Every mathematician, physicist or economist, and most scholars from other disciplines can write down an algorithm that would work provided infinite resources in computer time and storage space are given. (…) 

 

How complexity originates: Examples from history reveal additional roots to complexity
Peter Schuster
Complexity
DOI: 10.1002/cplx.21841

Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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