Matjaž Perc is Professor of Physics at the

University of Maribor The University of Maribor () is Slovenia's second-largest university, established in 1975 in Maribor, Slovenia. It currently has 17 faculties. History The university's roots reach back to 1859 when a theological seminary was established wi ...

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

, and director of th
Complex Systems Center Maribor
He is member of

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

Matjaž Perc at Academia Europaea
/ref> and among top 1% most cited physicists according to

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational content-driven technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 1 ...

Highly Cited Researchers.Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers
/ref> He is Outstanding Referee of the Physical Review and

Physical Review Letters ''Physical Review Letters'' (''PRL''), established in 1958, is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society. The journal is considered one of the most prestigious in the field of physics ...

journals,APS Outstanding Referees Program
/ref> and Distinguished Referee of EPL.Distinguished EPL Referees
/ref> He received the Young Scientist Award for Socio-and Econophysics in 2015.
/ref> His research has been widely reported in the media and professional literature.Who should pay for the police?
''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'' 2010-07-14Tracking the most popular words in written English
''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a popular science magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organ ...

'' 2012-07-25The Evolution of English Words and Phrases Since 1520
'' MIT Technology Review 2012-12-11''Physicists Explore The Rise And Fall Of Words
''Inside Science'' 2012-12-27

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

2013-02-10Fewer 'bromances' or 'staycations' than friends and trips, Google shows

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

2012-12-28A brave new word
'' Chemistry World'' 2015-02-24The cost and benefit of deception
'' Physics Today'' 2014-12-04The influence of influence in Prisoner’s Dilemma
'' Science News'' 2008-12-05Measuring the Spread of Ideas through the ''Physical Review''
''

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

'' 2014-11-21Tolerate thy neighbour
'' Nature Physics'' 2016-09-02

Biography

Matjaž Perc studied physics at the

. He completed his doctoral thesis on noise-induced pattern formation in spatially extended systems with applications to the nervous system, game-theoretical models, and social complexity. In 2009 he received the Zois Certificate of Recognition for outstanding research achievements in theoretical physics. Awardees of the Zois Certificate of RecognitionPodelili Zoisove nagrade in priznanja
'' Delo'' 2009-11-23 In 2010 he became head of the Institute of Physics at the

, and in 2011 he became full Professor of Physics. In 2015, Matjaž Perc established the Complex Systems Center Maribor.Complex Systems Center Maribor
/ref> His research on

complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components that may interact with one another. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...

covers evolutionary game theory,

agent-based model An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual or collective entities such as organizations or groups) in order to understand the behavior of a system and ...

ing,

data analysis Data analysis is the process of inspecting, Data cleansing, cleansing, Data transformation, transforming, and Data modeling, modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Da ...

, and

network science Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, Cognitive network, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct eleme ...

Research

Matjaž Perc is an expert on the theory of cooperation on networks. He has applied Monte Carlo simulations and dynamical mean field theory to discover that stochastic perturbations resolve social dilemmas in a resonance-like manner. He has also pioneered self-organization as a way of stabilizing reward and punishment in structured populations, and he has proposed the introduction of discrete strategies in ultimatum games, which has contributed to the understanding of the fascinating complexity behind human bargaining. His research has helped to reveal the full potential of methods of non-equilibrium statistical physics in evolutionary game theory. He has done research on the evolution of moral and double moral standards, the evolution of the most common English words and phrases, and the rise and fall of new words. He has discovered

self-organization Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order and disorder, order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spont ...

in the way how major scientific ideas propagate across the physics literature, which culminated in a simple mathematical regularity that is able to identify scientific

meme A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...

s. In addition to his various original contributions, Matjaž Perc has provided the research community with several reviews and introductory articles on evolutionary games, the emergence of

organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

, collective phenomena in socio-economic systems, energy-saving mechanisms in nature, and the Matthew effect. By the number of citations, he is the most cited author of several physics journals including New Journal of Physics, Biosystems,

Journal of the Royal Society Interface The ''Journal of the Royal Society Interface'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the interface between the life sciences and the physical sciences, including chemistry, engineering, materials science, mathematics, and physics. ...

, Physical Review E.

Awards

* 2018 received the Zois Award (named after Sigmund Zois). *2017 received

USERN Prize The Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (official acronym – USERN) is a non-profit organization and network for non-military scientific investigation and policy-making. USERN was established on January 1, 2016, and the basic s ...

in social sciences, for "Transitions Towards Cooperation in Human Societies". * 2009 received the Zois Certificate of Recognition. Being only 30 years old at the time, he was the youngest receiver of the Zois certificate ever.

Publications

For a full list se
Matjaž Perc's ORCID
page. * Spatial coherence resonance in excitable media, Matjaž Perc, Phys. Rev. E 72, 016207 (2005

* Coherence resonance in a spatial prisoner's dilemma game, Matjaž Perc, New J. Phys. 8, 22 (2006

* Transition from Gaussian to Lévy distributions of stochastic payoff variations in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game, Matjaž Perc, Phys. Rev. E 75, 022101 (2007

* Noise-guided evolution within cyclical interactions, Matjaž Perc and Attila Szolnoki, New J. Phys. 9, 267 (2007

* Social diversity and promotion of cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game, Matjaž Perc and Attila Szolnoki, Phys. Rev. E 77, 011904 (2008

* Making new connections towards cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game, Attila Szolnoki, Matjaž Perc and Zsuzsa Danku, EPL 84, 50007 (2008

* Topology-independent impact of noise on cooperation in spatial public goods games, Attila Szolnoki, Matjaž Perc and György Szabó, Phys. Rev. E 80, 056109 (2009

* Resolving social dilemmas on evolving random networks, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, EPL 86, 30007 (2009

* Coevolutionary games - A mini review, Matjaž Perc and Attila Szolnoki, BioSystems 99, 109-125 (2010

* Does strong heterogeneity promote cooperation by group interactions?, Matjaž Perc, New J. Phys. 13, 123027 (2011

* Defense mechanisms of empathetic players in the spatial ultimatum game, Attila Szolnoki, Matjaž Perc and György Szabó, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 078701 (2012

* Evolution of the most common English words and phrases over the centuries, Matjaž Perc, J. R. Soc. Interface 9, 3323-3328 (2012

(tables containing the most common English words and phrases ar
here
* Self-organization of punishment in structured populations, Matjaž Perc and Attila Szolnoki, New J. Phys. 14, 043013 (2012

* Evolutionary advantages of adaptive rewarding, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, New J. Phys. 14, 093016 (2012

* Correlation of positive and negative reciprocity fails to confer an evolutionary advantage: Phase transitions to elementary strategies, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, Phys. Rev. X 3, 041021 (2013

* Evolutionary dynamics of group interactions on structured populations: A review, Matjaž Perc, Jesús Gómez Gardeñes, Attila Szolnoki, Luis M. Floría and Yamir Moreno, J. R. Soc. Interface 10, 20120997 (2013

* Inheritance patterns in citation networks reveal scientific memes, Tobias Kuhn, Matjaž Perc and Dirk Helbing, Phys. Rev. X 4, 041036 (2014

(see also the Physics Focus stor
here
* Interdependent network reciprocity in evolutionary games, Zhen Wang, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, Scientific Reports 3, 1183 (2013

* Self-organization of progress across the century of physics, Matjaž Perc, Scientific Reports 3, 1720 (2013

(the n-gram viewer for publications of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

i
here
* Antisocial pool rewarding does not deter public cooperation, Attila Szolnoki and Matjaž Perc, Proc. R. Soc. B 282, 20151975 (2015

* The Matthew effect in empirical data, Matjaž Perc, J. R. Soc. Interface 11, 20140378 (2014

* Saving human lives: What complexity science and information systems can contribute, Dirk Helbing, Dirk Brockmann, Thomas Chadefaux, Karsten Donnay, Ulf Blanke, Olivia Woolley-Meza, Mehdi Moussaid, Anders Johansson, Jens Krause, Sebastian Schutte and Matjaž Perc, J. Stat. Phys. 158, 735-781 (2015

* Statistical physics of crime: A review, Maria Rita D'Orsogna, Maria R. D'Orsogna and Matjaž Perc, Phys. Life Rev. 12, 1-21 (2015

Editorial work

Matjaž Perc is editorial board member at '' Physical Review E'', '' New Journal of Physics'', '' EPL (journal), EPL'', '' European Physical Journal B'', '' Advances in Complex Systems'', '' Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Physics'', '' International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos'', '' PLOS ONE'', '' Scientific Reports'', '' Royal Society Open Science'',
Chaos, Solitons & Fractals
', and
Applied Mathematics and Computation
'. He was also guest editor for the '' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America''.

References and notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perc, Matjaz 1979 births 21st-century physicists Slovenian physicists Living people Academic staff of the University of Maribor Statistical physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society