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2 – What Does it Mean to Truly Understand a System?

Original was uploaded on 2026-05-01

What does it really mean to understand a system? This video explores why strong prediction on known data does not necessarily mean we understand how a system works.

This is the second video in Nan Chen and I’s Applied Mathematics in Geoscience series where we explore short insights into big questions. This series is based on a joint work: “An Applied Mathematics Perspective on Modern Geosciences” by Nan Chen, Reza Malek-Madani, Pedram Hassanzadeh, Samuel N. Stechmann, Amy Braverman, Hannah Christensen, Anne Gelb, Michael Ghil, Dimitris Giannakis, Chris Jones, Ruby Leung, Matthias Morzfeld, Charlotte Moser, Tim Palmer, Christian Sampson, Themistoklis Sapsis, Tiffany Shaw, Andrew Stuart, Jonathan Weare, Laure Zanna.

We thank all collaborators for their contributions. We would like to give a special thank you to Dr. Reza Malek-Madani for his helpful discussions and feedback on the video series.