When:
Friday, October 29, 2021
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CT
Where: Technological Institute, L211, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Contact:
Samantha Westlake
(847) 491-7650
Group: Physics and Astronomy Colloquia
Category: Academic
Abstract: A fundamental aspect of a random walk is determining when it reaches a specified threshold position for the first time. This first-passage time, and more generally, the distribution of first passage times underlies many non-equilibrium phenomena, such as the triggering of integrate and fire neurons, the statistics of cell division, and the execution of stock options. The computation of the first-passage time and its distribution is both simple and beautiful, with profound connections to electrostatic potential theory. I will present some aspects of these fundamentals and then discuss applications of first-passage ideas to diverse phenomena, including the stochastic search processes and a toy model of wealth sharing.
Seminar Speaker: Sidney Redner, Santa Fe Institute
Hosts: Istvan Kovacs, Adilson Motter