In the past few decades, there have been remarkable developments in Statistical Physics, in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium contexts. These developments have shaped our outlook for complex systems in general. A focus of this meeting is to reflect on the current day status of some of these advances in modern Statistical Physics and to discuss future directions and open problems. An emphasis will be on some of the pioneering contributions from the Indian scientific community. These include (not exclusively) topics on fluctuation-induced ordering, growing interfaces, driven diffusive systems, self-organized criticality, emergent complexity, out-of-equilibrium transport, percolation, and exactly solvable lattice models.A special session: Prof. Mustansir Barma and Prof. Deepak Dhar have made numerous important contributions in Theoretical Physics, especially in the field of Statistical and Mathematical Physics. Besides their scientific contributions, they have also trained a large numb...
In the past few decades, there have been remarkable developments in Statistical Physics, in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium contexts. These developments have shaped our outlook for complex systems in general. A focus of this meeting is to reflect on the current day status of some of these advances in modern Statistical Physics and to discuss future directions and open problems. An emphasis will be on some of the pioneering contributions from the Indian scientific community. These include (not exclusively) topics on fluctuation-induced ordering, growing interfaces, driven diffusive systems, self-organized criticality, emergent complexity, out-of-equilibrium transport, percolation, and exactly solvable lattice models.A special session: Prof. Mustansir Barma and Prof. Deepak Dhar have made numerous important contributions in Theoretical Physics, especially in the field of Statistical and Mathematical Physics. Besides their scientific contributions, they have also trained a large numb...
This discussion meeting on Neuroscience, Dynamics and Data Science, will be accompanied by Turing lectures on a topic that unites all three themes, viz. the Physics of Birdsong. The Turing lectures will be delivered by Prof. Gabriel Mindlin, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, who is an acknowledged expert in the field and also the winner of the Arthur Taylor Winfree award from the ICTP Trieste for his work on the subject.The activity of birdsong constitutes an important example of a situation in which a neurophysiological process results in complex audible output. The study of the characteristics of the birdsong, and the identification of a system which can produce a synthetic birdsong of the same characteristics, provides important insights in the ways in which the neural architecture in the brain can co-ordinate with a delicate vocal apparatus. The Turing lectures will provide an overview of the neurophysical mechanisms that lead to the production of birdsong, the acoustic effect...
This discussion meeting on Neuroscience, Dynamics and Data Science, will be accompanied by Turing lectures on a topic that unites all three themes, viz. the Physics of Birdsong. The Turing lectures will be delivered by Prof. Gabriel Mindlin, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, who is an acknowledged expert in the field and also the winner of the Arthur Taylor Winfree award from the ICTP Trieste for his work on the subject.The activity of birdsong constitutes an important example of a situation in which a neurophysiological process results in complex audible output. The study of the characteristics of the birdsong, and the identification of a system which can produce a synthetic birdsong of the same characteristics, provides important insights in the ways in which the neural architecture in the brain can co-ordinate with a delicate vocal apparatus. The Turing lectures will provide an overview of the neurophysical mechanisms that lead to the production of birdsong, the acoustic effect...
Thermodynamics plays a fundamental role in all branches of physics and in many other fields of science and technology. The theory is particularly well established for macroscopic systems at or close to equilibrium. In the last 25 years, however, very significant progress has been made in our understanding of a vast variety of nonequilibrium phenomena, and it is now clear that, under certain conditions and for certain dynamics, a consistent (statistical, in particular) description can be established for systems driven arbitrarily far away from equilibrium.Nonetheless, neither a complete description of nonequilibrium states nor a full characterization of transport processes is available, as the system state appears to strongly depend on the nature of the constraints acting on it, and on many other details of the dynamics. In particular, at present there is no universally accepted generalization of the equilibrium thermodynamic potentials, suitable to describe the state probability distri...
No living organism escapes evolutionary change, and evolutionary biology thus connects all biological disciplines. To understand the processes driving evolution, we need a theoretical framework to predict and test evolutionary changes in populations. Population genetic theory provides this basic framework, integrating mathematical and statistical concepts with fundamental biological principles of genetic inheritance, selection, mutation, migration and random genetic drift. Population genetic models allow us to make quantitative predictions that can inform an experimentalist while designing new experiments, and give us a deeper understanding of how evolution works. This School will cover topics such as evolutionary rescue, mechanisms and dynamics of molecular evolution, microbial range expansions and the use of pedigrees in population genetics. For each topic, lectures will begin with basic concepts and end with recent advances in the field. A series of research seminars will also intro...
Thermodynamics plays a fundamental role in all branches of physics and in many other fields of science and technology. The theory is particularly well established for macroscopic systems at or close to equilibrium. In the last 25 years, however, very significant progress has been made in our understanding of a vast variety of nonequilibrium phenomena, and it is now clear that, under certain conditions and for certain dynamics, a consistent (statistical, in particular) description can be established for systems driven arbitrarily far away from equilibrium.Nonetheless, neither a complete description of nonequilibrium states nor a full characterization of transport processes is available, as the system state appears to strongly depend on the nature of the constraints acting on it, and on many other details of the dynamics. In particular, at present there is no universally accepted generalization of the equilibrium thermodynamic potentials, suitable to describe the state probability distri...
No living organism escapes evolutionary change, and evolutionary biology thus connects all biological disciplines. To understand the processes driving evolution, we need a theoretical framework to predict and test evolutionary changes in populations. Population genetic theory provides this basic framework, integrating mathematical and statistical concepts with fundamental biological principles of genetic inheritance, selection, mutation, migration and random genetic drift. Population genetic models allow us to make quantitative predictions that can inform an experimentalist while designing new experiments, and give us a deeper understanding of how evolution works. This School will cover topics such as evolutionary rescue, mechanisms and dynamics of molecular evolution, microbial range expansions and the use of pedigrees in population genetics. For each topic, lectures will begin with basic concepts and end with recent advances in the field. A series of research seminars will also intro...
