Past Events

Larry Abbott  - Columbia University

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Zoom opens: 10:30AM EDT

Seminar begins: 10:45AM EDT

CLICK HERE TO VIEW RECORDING

Biological Systems for Spatial Orientation

I will discuss several topics related to how animals represent and update their sense of orientation in the world.  In flies, this is done with a set of neurons that collectively form a ring-attractor network.  Activity in this system indicates the azimuthal orientation of the fly.  I will discuss how the polarization pattern of the sky is used as keep this encoded angle aligned with the physical world.  Vertebrates have an analogous system for head orientation, but it is more complex.  I will discuss various ways that a ring-attractor could be embedded in a large population of neurons, with results relevant for studies of the synaptic connections in these circuits.  Finally, in both flies and vertebrates, these systems have been studied primarily in two dimension (that is, considering only yaw rotations).  I will discuss different ideas about how they might respond to three-dimensional rotations.

Itamar Procaccia - Weizmann Insitute Wednesday, July 8, 2026 Zoom opens: 10:30AM EDT Seminar begins: 10:45AM EDT Amorphous Solids: More than Meets the Eye Understanding the mechanical response of amorphous solids, like glasses and granular media, requires considerations that go

Michael Shelley - Flatiron Institute & NYU Wednesday, July 1, 2026 Zoom opens: 10:30AM EDT Seminar begins: 10:45AM EDT Modeling chromatin as an active polymer melt In this talk I'll discuss a line of work wherein chromatin in the nucleus

Robert McCann – University of Toronto Wednesday, June 24, 2026 Zoom opens: 10:30AM EDT Seminar begins: 10:45AM EDT Trading linearity for ellipticity: a low regularity Lorentzian splitting theorem While Einstein's theory of gravity is formulated in a smooth setting, the

Doyne Farmer – Oxford University Wednesday, June 17, 2026 Zoom opens: 10:30AM EDT Seminar begins: 10:45AM EDT Quantitative complexity economics: A revolution in the making Mainstream economic theory follows a standard template that I will review in this talk. Complexity

130th Statistical Mechanics Conference Sunday May 10 2026 - Tuesday May 12 2026 at 0800am - 0500pm nbspHill Center 100 Frelinghuysen Road Room 116 Piscataway NJ nbsp Celebrating the achievements of our guests of honor Michael Loss Marc Mzardnbsp Subir