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SUMMARY:LARMOR LECTURE - The Computational Universe - Professor Leslie Val
 iant FRS\, T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Computer Science and Applied
  Mathematics\, Harvard USA
DTSTART:20141013T170000Z
DTEND:20141013T180000Z
UID:TALK51925@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Beverley Larner
DESCRIPTION:The idea that computation has its own laws and limitations eme
 rged in the 1930s. Some of the early computing pioneers\, most notably Tur
 ing and von Neumann\, already understood that this idea had far reaching i
 mplications beyond technology. It offered a new way of looking at the worl
 d\, in terms of computational processes. Turing and von Neumann themselves
  pursued this perspective in such areas as genetics\, biological developme
 nt\, cognition and the brain.\n\nThere has been much progress in the inter
 vening years in understanding computation. The question that arises for ou
 r generation is how to exploit this increasing knowledge to obtain insight
 s into the natural world that cannot be obtained otherwise. This talk will
  focus on biological evolution approached from this standpoint. The scient
 ific question is to determine the molecular mechanism of biological evolut
 ion\, to a level of specificity that it can be simulated by computer\, and
  to understand why this mechanism can do the remarkable things that it has
  done within the time that has been available. We argue that the tools nee
 ded to approach this come from machine learning\, the field that studies h
 ow mechanisms that achieve complex functionality can arise by a process of
  adaptation rather than design. \n\n 
LOCATION:Bristol-Myers-Squibb Lecture theatre\, Department of Chemistry
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