Probability and Mathematical Physics Seminar

Why is nature critical?

Speaker: Matthew Junge, CUNY

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Friday, March 21, 2025, 11:10 a.m.

Synopsis:

How is it that natural systems---such as tectonic plates, snow slopes, and financial markets---maintain critical-like states despite no external tuning? I'll go through Bak, Tang, and Wiesenfeld's influential theory of self-organized criticality and then describe our solutions to some long-standing conjectures via the Activated Random Walk model. Joint with Chris Hoffman, Toby Johnson, and Josh Meisel.