From chemical reaction networks to hypergraphs 

Structures where more than two elements may have relations, like substances in chemical reaction or joint publications by scientists, are mathematically described as hypergraphs. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences are developing a rich mathematical theory that can identify the specific properties of all kinds of such networks and describe their dynamical behavior. With these methods, also new types of collective patterns in networks of coupled oscillators can be detected and analysed.