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Yet, the most successful of these 'minimal models' have brought about a revolution of our understanding of complex systems, in particular in the life sciences, and are still shaping our view of the world today. It is hard to look at a power-law distribution without thinking of the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld sandpile model. And it is near impossible to reflect on synchronization without imagining coupled phase oscillators. Here we have put together a few ideas on how to formulate and analyze simple models and to draw conclusions from them."],"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publisher":"Elsevier BV","embargoEndDate":null,"sources":["Crossref"],"formats":null,"contributors":null,"coverages":null,"bestAccessRight":{"code":"c_abf2","label":"OPEN","scheme":"http://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/documentation/access_rights/"},"container":{"name":"Physics of Life 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