Colloquium: Determinism and Randomness

Vaughn Climenhaga, UNC Charlotte

Kirby-Manchester 016

When we roll a pair of dice, their motion follows deterministic laws, but we generally accept that the outcome is unpredictable, even to the person who rolled them. A mathematical framework with which to study the appearance of randomness in this and other deterministic systems is provided by the use of ergodic theory in hyperbolic dynamics. I will describe some of the core ideas involved, and the way in which mathematical tools from statistical mechanics play a central role.

Host: Dr. Fan Yang []