Mathematics Colloquium: Faces of entropy: Connecting Physics, Biology and Quantum Information Science

Speaker: Maria Emelianenko, George Mason University

Title: Faces of entropy: Connecting Physics, Biology and Quantum Information Science

Abstract:
Conceptually, entropy is often thought of as a measure of randomness in a system. But it comes in different flavors depending on the type of a “network” this concept is applied to. This talk will focus on connections between thermodynamic, information theory and graph theoretic definitions of entropy and survey recent theoretical and applied developments. In particular, we will talk about: (1) the role of microstructure entropy in describing coarsening processes in materials and quantifying their mechanical performance, (2) relative entropy of biological networks and protein sequences, and (3) applications to quantum information science.

Time: Friday, March 6, 2020, 3:30-4:20 p.m.

Place: Exploratory Hall, room 4106

Refreshments will be served at 3:00 p.m.