Learning, Information Theory, and Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics

 
 

Berkeley workgroup on

       Learning, Information Theory, & Nonequilibrium

       Thermodynamics

               Original Announcement link

We meet every other Friday, with known exceptions, in the seminar room of the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience on the UC Berkeley campus: Room 560 Evans Hall at 3:30 PM. The goal is to explore, in an open, guided-discussion format, the commonalities and connections between nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, dynamical systems, information theory, and machine learning. Participants from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and Stanford are regularly sighted.

Coordinates

EMAIL  lineq (at) lists.berkeley.edu

LOCATION  560 Evans Halls, UC Berkeley

TIme  3:30 PM every other Friday

WEB https://calmail.berkeley.edu/manage/list/listinfo/lineq@lists.berkeley.edu

Affiliations

  1. 1.Information Engines Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative

  2. 2.Complexity Sciences Center, UC Davis

  3. 3.Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, UC Berkeley

  4. 4.Physics Department, UC Davis

  5. 5.Physics Department, UC Berkeley

  6. 6.Biochemistry Department, UC Berkeley

  7. 7.Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Topics 2014

  1. 1.21 February: Kickoff Meeting (Tony Bell, Jim Crutchfield, and Gavin Crooks and a cast of dozens)

  2. 2.7 March: Group discussion of Spinney/Ford Review (Klages et al Collection, Chapter 1) and Jarzynski Review

  3. 3.21 March: Gavin Crooks (UCB), History of Fluctuation Relations

  4. 4.28 March: Gavin Crooks (UCB), Holes

  5. 5.11 April: Jascha Sohl-Dickeson (Stanford), Alternative Derivation of the Jarzynski Equality in terms of Computer Science Formalism

  6. 6.25 April: Alec Boyd (CSC, UC Davis), Maxwellian Demons

  7. 7.11 May: Tony Bell (Redwood, UCB), Connections between Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics and Machine Learning I

  8. 8.16 May: Tony Bell (Redwood, UCB), Connections between Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics and Machine Learning II

Topics Fall 2016

  1. ✦14 October: Organizational meeting for the new year

  2. ✦21 October: Dr. Jordan Horowitz (MIT) “Thermodynamics with continuous information flow”.


  1. ✦Still to be scheduled:

  2. ✦Paul Riechers (UCD): Generalized fluctuation theorems, broken reversibility, and smart agents

  3. ✦Alec Boyd (UCD): Thermodynamics of demons and ratchets and a new dynamical Second Law

  4. ✦Sarah Marzen (UCB): Circumventing the curse of dimensionality

  5. ✦Dibyendu Mandal (UCB): Equilibrium free energy from non-Hamiltonian dynamics and slow transitions between nonequilibrium steady states

  6. ✦Patrick Zulkowski (UCB): Optimal control of out-of-equilibrium processes

  7. ✦Smart molecules: Thermodynamics of various systems (mechano-rotary and ion channels). (Crooks, Sivak, Zulkowski, DeWeese, Riechers, Crutchfield)

Topics Winter 2016

  1. ✦22 January: Organizational Meeting

  2. ✦29 January: Dr. Gavin Crooks (LBNL) “On the thermodynamics of strongly coupled systems”. LINK

  3. ✦12 February: Nix Barnett (UCD) “Structured Transformations of Structured Processes: The ε-Transducer”. LINK

  4. ✦8 April: Dr. Subhaneil Lahiri (Stanford) “A universal tradeoff between power, precision and speed in physical communication”. LINK

  5. ✦15 April: Dr. Sebastian Deffner (LANL) “Quantum work and the informational cost of projective measurements” LINK

  6. ✦29 April: Grant Rotskoff (UCB): “Levels without loops: An introduction to large deviations in nonequilibrium statistical physics” LINK

  7. ✦6 May: Prof. Michael Roukes (CalTech): Yoctocalorimetry: Is it possible to measure directly the (miniscule) heat evolved by a logic operation? LINK

  8. ✦3 June: Cina Aghamohammadi (UCD): Large deviation theory and fluctuations in intrinsic computation LINK

Topics Fall 2015

Due to the tremendous progress since last year, we’ll start off more organized with short (30 minutes) review talks. The goal is to have everyone in the group sync’d up with our latest results.

  1. ✦18 September: Ryan James (UCD): Information Anatomy … information measures, information diagrams, and the intrinsic semantics of information. LINK

  2. ✦9 October: Dr. Gavin Crooks “Recent updates on thermodynamics of information processing, prediction, and memory”.

  3. ✦23 October: Three short talks on the Drazin inverse: (i) Paul Riechers (UCD): Drazin inverse from a spectral perspective, (ii) Dr. Subhaneil Lahiri: Learning and memory with complex synaptic plasticity, and (iii) Dr. Dibyendu Mandal: Drazin inverse and steady state thermodynamics. LINK

  4. ✦6 November: Charles Frye (UCB): The Statistical Physics of Hype? A Paper Discussion. LINK

  5. ✦20 November: Gavin Crooks (UCB): Analyzing biological experiments: Problems in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and noisy data analysis.

  6. ✦11 December: Alec Boyd (UCD) and Dibyendu Mandal (UCB) Memory & Correlation in the Thermodynamics of Maxwellian Demons LINK