Past Events

April 2026

Thu 16 Apr 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: CANCELLED: Sabine Klapp (TU Berlin): Nonreciprocal active and decision-making systems: Connections between particle and continuum scale
Centre for Complex Systems

This event has been cancelled. Nonreciprocal systems have recently received much interest in the statistical physics community and beyond. One intriguing feature of such systems is their unusual collective behavior including, e.g., spontaneous...
Thu 9 Apr 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Anzhi Sheng (KTH Stockholm): Evolutionary game dynamics on complex networks
Centre for Complex Systems

Evolutionary game theory provides a powerful framework to study strategic interactions in biological, social, and technological systems. When spatial structure is introduced, the interplay between local interactions and global dynamics can lead to...

March 2026

Tue 31 Mar 2026
11:30 - 12:30
Seminar: Maximilian Engel (Amsterdam/Berlin): Transitions between order and chaos in stochastic environments
Centre for Complex Systems

The talk will present some steps towards a mathematical framework for studying transient (finite-time) phenomena in random dynamical systems. It is a natural property of such systems to exhibit several co-existing, metastable regimes in state...
Thu 26 Mar 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Constantino Tsallis (Rio de Janeiro): Complexity: what is it, and how does it relate to possibly nonadditive entropic functionals?
Centre for Complex Systems

Boltzmann-Gibbs statistical mechanics is, together with Newton, Einstein and quantum mechanics, and Maxwell electromagnetism, one of the pillars of contemporary theoretical physics. This theory satisfactorily handles uncountably many physical systems...
Thu 19 Mar 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Karl J. Friston (UCL): The physics of sentience
Centre for Complex Systems

How can we understand ourselves as sentient creatures? And what are the principles that underwrite sentient behaviour? This presentation uses the free energy principle to furnish an account in terms of active inference. First, we will try to...
Wed 4 Mar 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Sanjay Kumar (Banaras Hindu U): Stochastic Dynamics of Polymer Translocation
Centre for Complex Systems

Polymer translocation through narrow pores is a fundamental process with broad relevance, ranging from biological phenomena such as DNA transport through nuclear pores to the development of nanopore-based sequencing technologies. In this work, we...

February 2026

Thu 26 Feb 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Edon Kelmendi (QMUL): Decision Problems for Linear Dynamical Systems
Centre for Complex Systems

This talk is about algorithms for iterations of linear maps. Given a linear map in the form of a matrix M with rational entries, and some point x, what can we say algorithmically about the sequence Mx, M^2 x, M^3 x, … . In particular, is there an...
Thu 19 Feb 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Luke Davis (U Edinburgh): Stochastic geometry of active matter
Centre for Complex Systems

For equilibrium hard spheres the stochastic geometry of the insertion space, the room to accommodate another sphere, relates exactly to the equation of state. We begin to extend this idea to active matter, analyzing insertion space for repulsive...
Mon 16 Feb 2026
12:00 - 13:00
Seminar: Raphaël Henry (Aix-Marseille University): Smooth words and their factor complexity
Centre for Complex Systems

Smooth words over an alphabet of integers {a,b} are infinite words that are infinitely derivable, the most famous example being the Oldenburger-Kolakoski word over {1,2}. We study here the factor complexity of these words: we first show bounds for...
Thu 12 Feb 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: David Mguni (QMUL): Language, Learning, and Limits: Representations at the Frontier of General-Purpose AI
Centre for Complex Systems

Recent advances in large language models have encouraged the view that natural language, mediated through prompting, could act as a universal interface for general-purpose learning. In this talk, I challenge that assumption by analysing the...
Thu 5 Feb 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Martina Contisciani (CEU Vienna): Multiscale network modeling of migration flows in Austria
Centre for Complex Systems

Migration plays a crucial role in urbanization, segregation, gentrification, and numerous phenomena related to socioeconomic development. Understanding the diverse drivers of mobility not only provides a deeper comprehension of the underlying social...

January 2026

Thu 29 Jan 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Markus Whiteland (Loughborough): Automaticity aspects of combinatorial complexity functions of infinite words
Centre for Complex Systems

Infinite words can be used to encode interesting properties of the orbits of discrete dynamical systems. Analysing the complexity of such a system may then be analysed through this encoding. Combinatorially speaking, quite often its complexity is...
Thu 22 Jan 2026
13:00 - 14:00
Seminar: Eng-Jon Ong (QMUL)
Centre for Complex Systems