ECM Seminar: Time’s arrow - Life and mind out of equilibrium
In the latest run of the Early Career Mathematicians Seminar Series, we will be joined by the winners of the 2024 Graham Hoare Prize.
Details
When? Thursday 9 October 2025, 16:00 to 17:00
Where? Online via Zoom
The Graham Hoare Prize is awarded annually to Early Career Mathematicians for a brilliant Mathematics Today article. The prize was named after Graham for his valuable contribution to the IMA and the wider mathematics community especially in encouraging young mathematicians. He was head of mathematics at Dr Challoner's Grammar School and has actively supported the UK Mathematics Trust the Ri Masterclasses programme the Bletchley Park Education Department the Mathematical Association and the IMA. Graham responded to letters in a characteristically erudite and jocular style for 20 years as Mathematics Today Letters Editor. In 2024 the winner was Ramón Nartallo-Kaluarachchi (Oxford) for his article on Mathematical Memory Machines.
Abstract
Biological systems are characterised by their complexity. They are typically composed of heterogenous noisy interactions that violate symmetry and consume energy in order to facilitate a suite of functions. In this talk I will focus on the mathematics of stochastic processes in particular nonequilibrium steady-states and stochastic thermodynamics. I will introduce this framework and illustrate how it can reveal insight into the thermodynamics of biological and neural systems. I will focus on results from my own work analysing neural data and will also present a number of new ideas that bring together statistical physics stochastic dynamics networks discrete topology and machine learning.
Bio
Ramón is entering the final year of his DPhil in Mathematics at the University of Oxford with a thesis at the interface of statistical physics dynamics networks and neuroscience. In particular his research focuses on nonequilibrium stochastic processes and their applications to neural dynamics. More generally he is interested in data-driven approaches to the dynamics of complex systems especially those in biology. When not doing mathematics Ramón enjoys reading basketball playing guitar and cooking. Due to a long-lived fascination more than half the items he owns are the colour orange.