Dear All,
Elements of this talk may be of interest.
Forwarded message:
>
> The Royal Society Bakerian Lecture, given annually, is the Society's premier
> lecture in the physical sciences. In 2001 it is being given by Professor
> David Sherrington FRS on Wednesday 7 February at 5.30pm, at the Blackett
> Laboratory, Imperial College, London. If you think this is the kind of
> event your mailbase users would be interested in, I would be grateful if you
> would circulate these details, along with the more detailed information
> below.
>
> Magnets, microchips, memories and markets: statistical physics of complex
^^^^^^^
> systems
>
> By Professor David Sherrington FRS
> Wykeham Professor of Physics in the University of Oxford
>
> Disorder and frustration in the interactions between even quite simple
> microscopic entities can lead to complex macroscopic co-operative behaviour,
> whose understanding has required the development of novel concepts and
> techniques and continues to pose challenges. In this talk an overview will
> be given of the origin and character of such complexity and its conceptual
> understanding. It will be shown how resultant concepts can be fruitfully
> and symbolically transferred between systems of physically quite different
> appearance. Illustrations will include frustrated magnets, (spin glasses),
> hard optimisation problems (microchip design), associative memories (as in
> the brain or artificial neural networks) and simple markets (inspired by
> economics).
>
>
> All are welcome to attend
>
> Tickets will not be issued and seats cannot be guaranteed. Parties of 6 or
> more are asked to inform the Society beforehand.
>
> The Society reserves the right to refuse admission.
>
> Information:
> Froniga Lambert
> Tel: 020 7451 2574
> email: [log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> www.royalsoc.ac.uk <http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk>
>
