Related papers: Statistical Physics for Humanities: A Tutorial
The familiar theories of physics have the feature that the application of the theory to make predictions in specific circumstances can be done by means of an algorithm. We propose a more precise formulation of this feature --- one based on…
It is a fascinating subject to explore how well we can understand the processes of life on the basis of fundamental laws of physics. It is emphasised that viewing biological processes as manipulation of information extracts their essential…
We develop a non-perturbative approach to simulating scattering on classical and quantum computers, in which the initial and final states contain a fixed number of composite particles. The construction is designed to mimic a particle…
I give a highly selective overview of the way statistical mechanics explains the microscopic origins of the time asymmetric evolution of macroscopic systems towards equilibrium and of first order phase transitions in equilibrium. These…
Motivated by a general principle governing regulation mechanisms in biological cells, we investigate a general interaction scheme between different populations of particles and specific particles, referred to as agents. Assuming that each…
Recent developments in the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics have brought the theory closer to that of classical probability and statistics. On the other hand, the unique character of quantum physics sets many of the questions…
Newtonian dynamics is derived from prior information codified into an appropriate statistical model. The basic assumption is that there is an irreducible uncertainty in the location of particles so that the state of a particle is defined by…
The style of mathematical models known to probabilists as Interacting Particle Systems and exemplified by the Voter, Exclusion and Contact processes have found use in many academic disciplines. In many such disciplines the underlying…
We study the motion of an inertial particle in a fractional Gaussian random field. The motion of the particle is described by Newton's second law, where the force is proportional to the difference between a background fluid velocity and the…
Algorithmic statistics considers the following problem: given a binary string $x$ (e.g., some experimental data), find a "good" explanation of this data. It uses algorithmic information theory to define formally what is a good explanation.…
Studying systems where many individual bodies in motion interact with one another is a complex and interesting area. Simple mechanisms that may be determined for biological, chemical, or physical reasons can lead to astonishingly complex…
From behavioral sciences to biology to quantum mechanics, one encounters situations where (i) a system outputs several random variables in response to several inputs, (ii) for each of these responses only some of the inputs may "directly"…
Physicists have, hitherto, mostly adopted a frequentist conception of probability, according to which probability statements apply only to ensembles. It is argued that we should, instead, adopt an epistemic, or Bayesian conception, in which…
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Boltzmann explained how irreversible macroscopic laws, in particular the second law of thermodynamics, originate in the time-reversible laws of microscopic physics. Boltzmann's analysis,…
We propose a Statistical-Mechanics inspired framework for modeling economic systems. Each agent composing the economic system is characterized by a few variables of distinct nature (e.g. saving ratio, expectations, etc.). The agents…
The aim of this work is to show that particle mechanics, both classical and quantum, Hamiltonian and Lagrangian, can be derived from few simple physical assumptions. Assuming deterministic and reversible time evolution will give us a…
Physical processes are computations only when we use them to externalize thought. Computation is the performance of one or more fixed processes within a contingent environment. We reformulate the Church-Turing thesis so that it applies to…
We analyze statistical consequences of a conjecture that there exists a fundamental (indivisible) quant of time. We study particle dynamics with discrete time. We show that a quantum-like interference pattern could appear as a statistical…
Optical simulators for the Ising model have demonstrated great promise for solving challenging problems in physics and beyond. Here, we develop a spatial optical simulator for a variety of classical statistical systems, including the clock,…
Many stochastic physical systems evolve smoothly over time in the sense that the distribution of states changes regularly across time steps. The transition from current state to the next state can often be modeled as the combination of a…