The great challenges of the 21st Century are systemic in nature. From ecological decline to cybersecurity in a digital age, the patterns of change we must grapple with are profoundly complex. Change agents will need to understand how change unfolds in complex systems in order to promote political and economic stability during these turbulent times.
A phase transition is simply the change of a substance from one phase to another. It’s most common usage refers to changes between solid, liquid, gaseous, and plasma states for physical materials — an example being the stages involved in transforming the surface of a lake from flowing waves of water to a frozen plateau of ice.