Noyce Conference Room
Seminar
  US Mountain Time
Speaker: 
Lee Cronin (University of Glasgow)

Our campus is closed to the public for this event.

Abstract:  We hypothesize that living systems can be distinguished from non-living systems by their ability to produce ‘complex’ artefacts or objects that look like information was needed to construct them. By considering the practical experimental means to determine if a molecule is complex, or needed information to be ‘made’, we developed a new approach to information that considers the assembly pathways (see Figure) by which that object could be made from the simplest building blocks. By partitioning an object into its irreducible parts and counting the steps by which the object can be reassembled from those parts, and considering the probabilities of such steps, the probability that an abundance of identical such objects could form in the absence of biological or technologically driven processes can be estimated. In this talk I will explain the foundations of pathway information theory, and explore a range of applications which exemplify the unique features of this approach.

 

Purpose: 
Research Collaboration
SFI Host: 
Michael Lachmann

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