When:
Friday, October 19, 2018
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CT
Where: Technological Institute, L211, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Contact:
Yassaman
(847) 491-7650
Group: Physics and Astronomy Colloquia
Category: Academic
While the equilibrium properties, states, and phase transitions of interacting systems are well described by statistical mechanics, the lack of suitable state parameters has hindered the understanding of non-equilibrium phenomena in divers settings, from glasses to driven systems to biology. Here we introduce a simple idea enabling the quantification of organization in non-equilibrium and equilibrium systems, even when the form of order is unknown. The length of a losslessly compressed data file is a direct measure of its information content. Here we use lossless data compression to study several out-of-equilibrium systems, and show that it both identifies ordering and reveals critical behavior and even some critical exponents in dynamical phase transitions. Our technique should provide a quantitative measure of organization in systems ranging from condensed matter systems in and out of equilibrium, to cosmology, biology and possibly economic and social systems.
Seminar Speaker: Paul Chaikin, NYU
Host: Driscoll
Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, Seminar, Colloquium