Seminar by, and schedule for Pavel Chvykov (Tuesday May 23)

[ben.machta]

Dear PBJC,

Our last scheduled meeting will be next Tuesday, May 23 from noon to 1pm in our usual room.  Pavel Chvykov, a graduate student in Jeremy England's group at MIT will give a talk titled 'Principle of least rattling: a general framework, or an over-idealization?'  An abstract is below.

I recently spent two weeks at a winter school with Pavel.  He has a fascinating perspective and is great to talk science with.  Pavel will be in town all day Tuesday.  Please let me know if there is a time that you would like to meet with him. (schedule below)

Best,
Ben

Tuesday, May 23:

10:00 -10:45 OPEN

10:45 – 11:30 OPEN

11:30 – 12:15 OPEN

12:00 – 1:00 Journal club (Icahn 200)

1:00 – 1:45 BREAK

1:45 – 2:30 OPEN

2:30 – 3:15 OPEN

3:15 – 4:30 OPEN

4:30 – 5:15 OPEN

Title: Principle of least rattling: a general framework, or an over-idealization?

Abstract: We begin with the loose observation that in many complex real-world systems, dynamics seem to settle into some relatively simple behaviors, rather than remaining completely chaotic. Think of planets solidifying out of a chaotically moving gas, sand-dunes forming with reproducible shapes and sizes, debris on a river getting trapped near the shores, active colloids accumulating in corners, or DNA reliably copying itself via proofreading mechanisms. While vastly different mechanisms account for each of these phenomena, the emergence of simplicity seems to be a common thread. So: how general is this phenomenon? How easy is it to break? Is there some common mathematical framework that can capture some of it? To begin a discussion of these questions, I will restrict to non-equilibrium dynamical systems with two strongly separated time-scales - which is another common feature of the above examples. In this context, the structures from field theory prove relevant, and we derive that under fairly general conditions, slow variables will settle into configurations where fast dynamics become least stochastic. Illustrating the relevance of the framework on a toy example, I will then talk about the steps for extending it to broader contexts.