Sornette

Sornette is a surname of French origin. The name is most closely associated in contemporary science with Didier Sornette, a physicist noted for his work on complex systems, critical phenomena, and risk analysis.

Didier Sornette (born 1957) is a Swiss-French scientist who has held professorial positions at ETH Zurich and has led the Financial Crisis Observatory, an interdisciplinary initiative that studies precursors and dynamics of crises in financial markets and other complex systems. His research applies concepts from physics to economics, geology, and risk management, with a focus on detecting early warning signals and understanding the mechanisms behind extreme events.

Among Sornette’s key contributions are analyses of finite-time singularities and log-periodic power laws as potential indicators of imminent crises, as well as the development of theoretical frameworks for predicting large, systemic upheavals. He has popularized the idea that certain extreme events—often labeled “dragon kings”—are not simply outliers but arise from distinct underlying processes that require separate modeling from conventional statistical extremes. Sornette is the author or co-author of several books and many scholarly articles on complexity, crises, and risk, including Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003). His work spans physics, finance, earth science, and risk assessment, and it is widely cited in discussions of crisis prediction and resilience.