The tiny world of particles and atoms and the gigantic world of the entire universe are separated by about forty orders of magnitude. As we move from one to the other, the laws of nature can behave in drastically different ways, sometimes obeying quantum physics, general relativity, or Newton’s classical mechanics, not to mention other intermediate theories.
Understanding the transformations that take place from one scale to another is one of the great classical questions in mathematics and theoretical physics, one that still hasn't been fully resolved. In this lecture, we will explore how these questions still inform and motivate interesting problems in probability theory and why so-called toy models, despite their superficially playful character, can sometimes lead to certain quantitative predictions.
Professor Martin Hairer is Professor of Pure Mathematics at Imperial College London. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2014.
Please email @email to register.
The lecture will be available on our Oxford Mathematics YouTube Channel on 22 September at 5 pm.
The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.