Related papers: Henry Eyring: Statistical Mechanics, Significant S…
The simplest theories often have much merit and many limitations, and in this vein, the value of Neutral Theory (NT) has been the subject of much debate over the past 15 years. NT was proposed at the turn of the century by Stephen Hubbell…
Some ideas from quantum theory are just beginning to percolate back to classical probability theory. For example, there is a widely used and successful theory of "chemical reaction networks", which describes the interactions of molecules in…
The integration of the history and philosophy of statistics was initiated at least by Hacking (1975) and advanced by Hacking (1990), Mayo (1996), and Zabell (2005), but it has not received sustained follow-up. Yet such integration is more…
Many systems involve numerous interacting parts and the whole system can have properties that the individual parts do not. I take this novelty as the defining characteristic of an emergent property. Other characteristics associated with…
Not only did Turing help found one of the most exciting areas of modern science (computer science), but it may be that his contribution to our understanding of our physical reality is greater than we had hitherto supposed. Here I explore…
Machine learning techniques are now routinely encountered in research laboratories across the globe. Impressive progress has been made through ML and AI techniques with regards to large data set processing. This progress has increased the…
A theory of structure is formulated for systems of many structureless classical particles with stable local interactions in Euclidean space. Such systems are shown to have their structure in thermodynamic equilibrium determined exactly by a…
Einstein was in many ways like a detective on a mystery trail, though in his case he was on the trail of nature's mysteries and not some murder mystery! And like all good detectives he had a style. It consisted of taking facts that he knew…
In 2012, Chen Ning Yang received a 90th birthday gift in the form of a black cube inscribed with his 13 most important contributions, which cover four major areas of physics: statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, particle physics…
We investigate the static and dynamic properties of a celebrated model of social segregation, providing a complete explanation of the mechanisms leading to segregation both in one- and two-dimensional systems. Standard statistical physics…
Inter-level connections in science routinely require constructs that neither of the connected theories contains. Statistical mechanics requires assumptions such as the Stosszahlansatz to generate thermodynamic irreversibility - assumptions…
These lectures deal with the problem of inductive inference, that is, the problem of reasoning under conditions of incomplete information. Is there a general method for handling uncertainty? Or, at least, are there rules that could in…
Throughout history, a relatively small number of individuals have made a profound and lasting impact on science and society. Despite long-standing, multi-disciplinary interests in understanding careers of elite scientists, there have been…
The life of Ernst Ising and the steps to solving the model named after him are reported in parallel. Wilhelm Lenz suggested his student Ernst Ising to explain the existence of ferromagnetism on the basis of his publication in 1920. The…
We give an abridged account of a continued string of studies in condensed matter physics and in complex systems that span five decades. We provide links to access abstracts and full texts of a selected list of publications. The studies were…
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics…
Epistemological consequences of quantum nonlocality (entanglement) are discussed under the assumption of a universally valid Schr\"odinger equation in the absence of hidden variables. This leads inevitably to a {\it many-minds…
Typicality arguments replace the postulated mixed state ensembles of statistical mechanics with pure states sampled uniformly at random, explaining why most microstates of large systems exhibit thermal behavior. This paradigm has been…
In quantum experiments the acquisition and representation of basic experimental information is governed by the multinomial probability distribution. There exist unique random variables, whose standard deviation becomes asymptotically…
Heisenberg introduced his famous uncertainty relations in a seminal 1927 paper entitled "The Physical Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics". He motivated his arguments with a gedanken experiment, a gamma ray microscope to measure the…