Northwestern physicists find disorder can stabilize complex networks

September 19, 2026 at 04:56 PM1 min

This digest was compiled by AI from multiple sources — links to the originals are below.

Physicists at Northwestern University have developed a mathematical framework showing that variation among components can make networks more stable. The study, published Sept. 17 in Science, challenges the assumption that uniformity is always best. The findings could guide design of more resilient power grids and materials.

Key Facts

The study was published Sept. 17 in the journal Science.
The research was led by Adilson Motter, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University.
The researchers created a website that allows users to explore the framework visually by adjusting parameters.
The study's co-first authors are Northwestern postdoctoral researcher Arthur Montanari and graduate student Pietro Zanin.

Disorder and Stability

The researchers created a mathematical framework designed to determine when variation, often described as disorder, can make a network more stable. Their results suggest that many physical, engineered, and biological systems can become more resilient when their components or connections are not identical. This finding challenges the idea that uniformity should always be the goal. Carefully introducing differences into a system could help engineers design more resilient power grids, architected materials, and other interconnected technologies.

Explaining Natural Irregularity

The work may help explain why irregularity is so common in natural systems, including neural, biological, and ecological networks. Adilson Motter noted that previous studies found a growing number of cases in which disorder across a network's nodes can improve stability and desirable behavior. Motter said this effect has been observed in important real-world systems, including power grids, metamaterials, and brain computation. The new study answers which kinds of systems could benefit from disorder and explains why scientists overlooked this effect for so long.