Read at : Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091117124013.htm
Spotting Evidence of Directed Percolation
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2009) — A team of physicists has, for the first time, seen convincing experimental evidence for directed percolation, a phenomenon that turns up in computer models of the ways diseases spread through a population or how water soaks through loose soil. Their observation strengthens the case for directed percolation’s relevance to real systems, and lends new vigor to long-standing theories about how it works.
Their experiment is reported in Physical Review E and highlighted with a Viewpoint in the November 16 issue of Physics.
While directed percolation models are handy for describing things as diverse as sand flow and calcium dynamics in cells, no one had managed to find clear, reproducible evidence of the phenomenon in a controlled experiment.
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Adapted from materials provided by American Physical Society, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
