Abstract:
The phenomenon of universality, where many complex systems share large scale features despite differing in microscopic details, is often observed in nature. Explaining this phenomenon in various contexts of mathematical models is one of the important topics in contemporary research in probability theory. The most well-known example of such an understanding is given by the celebrated central limit theorem which explains the ubiquity of the Gaussian distribution (bell curve), and there are many other interesting examples beyond the Gaussian universality. In this talk, I shall describe a few of these stories, some of which have been proved mathematically while the others still remain as conjectures.
About the Speaker:
Riddhipratim Basu is a probabilist currently working at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He was educated at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and obtained his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. Subsequently, he spent two years at Stanford university before joining ICTS in 2017. He is interested in various aspects of probability theory and its applications including models of random growth, random graphs and interacting particle systems
