Mathematics of terror

摘要

Since the 1960s, the mountains of southern Colombia have been home to a warrnbetween the government and a leftist guerrilla movement known as the RevolutionaryrnArmed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The conflict has simmered for decades. Sometimesrnit flares up in battles with government forces, a terror bombing, or a particularly high-rnprofile kidnapping. Sometimes it fades into the background as cease-fires or negotiationsrnquiet the hostilities. FARC has been fighting for so long that the war has become almostrnlike background noise, says Neil Johnson, a University of Miami physicist who travelsrnto Colombia every year to visit his wife's family. Even locals have become numb to thernconflict. "There's this war going on, but I didn't think too much of it. You hear numbersrnof dead every day, like football results," Johnson says. "It took me 10 years to realize that maybe there was important information hidden in those numbers."