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Why the world is simple - Prof Ard Louis

Why the world is simple - Prof Ard Louis

FromTheoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma


Why the world is simple - Prof Ard Louis

FromTheoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma

ratings:
Length:
39 minutes
Released:
Feb 15, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

The coding theorem from algorithmic information theory (AIT) - which should be much more widely taught in Physics! - suggests that many processes in nature may be highly biased towards simple outputs. Here simple means highly compressible, or more formally, outputs with relatively lower Kolmogorov complexity. I will explore applications to biological evolution, where the coding theorem implies an exponential bias towards outcomes with higher symmetry, and to deep learning neural networks, where the coding theorem predicts an Occam's razor like bias that may explain why these highly overparamterised systems work so well.
Released:
Feb 15, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (86)

Members of the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics host a morning of Theoretical Physics roughly three times a year on a Saturday morning. The mornings consist of three talks pitched to explain an area of our research to an audience familiar with physics at about the second-year undergraduate level and are open to all Oxford Alumni. Topics include Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes, Dark Matter, Plasma, Particle Accelerators and The Large Hadron Collider.