My presentation "On the spread of Viruses and information "

I made a presentation titled "On the spread of Viruses and information " at Varahamihira Science Forum pm 25 April 2020

I thank Badri Seshadri for asking me if I can talk about the book was reading and Varahamihira Science Forum (https://www.facebook.com/MadrasScience/) for this opportunity.

I messaged a few friends in Feb 2020 "It would be a good idea to understand the parameters that make an epidemic dangerous, to understand the spread of an epidemic, and also extend this to information spread. Do you have any suggestions to read?"

Anjali Deshmukh suggested a book in response, to set the ball rolling. 

Thanks to my friend Ravi (Prof  Balaraman Ravindran ) for answering my queries patiently through Whatsapp, books suggested, and his inputs on the presentation.

Special thanks to both  🙏

I understood soon that the subject was vast and the 1 hour would be just enough to provide an overview and that is what I have attempted. 

Here are the Key Takeaways from the Session.

• SIR model is a simple model to understand the spread of contagion
• The Idea of R, the reproduction number allows us to understand anything that spreads and is not just limited to contagious diseases and has its use in other domains
• R = Duration × Opportunities × Transmission probability × Susceptibility
• By playing with the parameters in R = DOTS, we can control anything that spreads
• Even biological processes are amenable to mathematical modeling. The models are useful but are not infallible
• The study of contagions and their use to understand other kinds of information spread has gots its limitations
• What we call as ‘making something viral’ is not viral in the sense of the infectious disease, but just making it popular
• The susceptibility of networks, either it be financial networks or computer networks, to contagion is an evolving area of study
• With more dependency on Internet and IoT, our approach towards computer security has to undergo a sea change

If some of the above-used terms sound alien, please refer to the presentation and to the talk. 

(Note: I wasn't too keen to show my haircut-badly-needed face, but forgot that the room does get dark in the evening, so apologies for just showing an outline 😀 )

A PDF version of the presentation used is available here for your reference - https://drive.google.com/…/1UqeCzDyd3nDjYikBdq0IWXDkKA…/view