Hi everyone, I am new to Mastodon, so I'm still not very familiar with the whole thing, but I smell very good premises!
I am a (soon to be) Physics PhD student, and I'm interested to links Statistical Mechanics and biological evolution.
Other than this, I like to read (and sometimes write) about the links between technological advancement, such as machine learning or social networks and changes in our society and politics!
@DenT94 Hi DenT94. Good luck with your PhD! What field of physics are you working in?
@black_sun
Biophysics! Statistical mechanics applied to biological evolution!
@DenT94 Sounds very interesting. Could you please briefly describe the link between statistical mechanics and evolution?
@black_sun
Sure! There are links both on the theoretical side and on the data-analysis side. StatMech describes what happens when there are a lot of objects that interact, between themselves and the environment. This interaction is described by an energy. Physical principles tell us that the 'best possible state' is the one that minimizes the total energy. A first, naive analogy would be then to think as individuals in a population as these objects having characteristics that assign them a 'fitness' that characterizes the reproductive power. IF we can establish then a link from energy in #StatMech and fitness in #evolution we can use the methods coming from the first to have a better understanding of the second
#StatEvol
@DenT94 Thank you :) I wonder whether living organisms as dissipative structures fit this theory anyhow or this term is completely unrelated to the subject?
@black_sun You're welcome! I think what you mentioned falls into the description of living organisms from a physical POV. What I will be working on will be more focused on an analogy between the process of natural selection and physical processes
@DenT94 I see. Sounds like a very interesting approach to the problem.