Math behind everyday life: “black days”, their manifestation as traffic jams, and beyond

Daniil Fedotov and Sergei Nechaev

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2025, vol. 657, issue C

Abstract: In our daily lives, we encounter numerous independent events, each occurring with varying probabilities over time. This work delves into the scientific background behind the inhomogeneous distribution of these events over time, often resulting in what we refer to as “black days”, where multiple events seem to converge at once. In the first part of the work we performed an analysis involving D independent periodic and random sequences of events. Using the Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) technique, we observed a clustering of event sequences on a two-dimensional manifold M at a certain large D. We interpret this clustering as a signature of “black days”, which bears a clear resemblance to traffic jams in vehicle flow. In the second part of the work we examined in detail clustering patterns of independently distributed N points within the corners of a D-dimensional cube when 1≪NKeywords: Condensation of events; Dimensionality curse; Phase transition; Traffic jam; UMAP technique; Spectral analysis; Percolation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:657:y:2025:i:c:s0378437124007441

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2024.130235

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