More Perfect Than We Imagined: A Physicist's View of Life - Lecture 1

Overview

Explore the fascinating intersection of physics and biology in this lecture by William Bialek, part of the Alan Turing Lectures in Biology series. Delve into how evolution has shaped biological mechanisms to operate at the limits of physical laws, from atomic-scale vibrations in hearing to single-molecule detection in bacterial navigation. Examine intriguing examples of nature's precision, including embryonic development, human perception, and decision-making processes. Discover how life's complexity may ultimately reveal a simpler, more perfect system than previously imagined. Journey through topics such as photon counting in vision, fly embryo development, bat echolocation, and probabilistic reasoning in the brain, gaining insights into the remarkable efficiency of biological systems.

Syllabus

INTERNATIONAL CENTRE for
Turing Lecture 1
ICTS
WHAT IS ICTS-TIFR?
In-house Research
ICTS as a Platform
What is an ICTS Program?
A Sampling of ICTS Programs
Named Lecture Series
The ICTS Campus
Alan Turing Lectures ICTS. Bangalore 4-6 January 2016
Correct responses
Before we dig in, let me emphasize that I didn't come to these views alone.
surprisingly Gary Larson got it wrong:
In proper physics tradition, consider the case of the spherical head ...
Imagine sitting in a very dark room. A dim light flashes.
Could the brain be counting individual photons? If so,
In these experiments,
Is single molecule counting more general? Let's look at 15 minutes of fly development.
How does the embryo "know" where to draw the line?
Biological systems that operate near the limits set by the laws of physics: Bat echolocation
Why psychologists think we're stupid A problem for the brain
Can we do a better posed version of these problems about probabilistic reasoning?
Actually, these are examples of "correlated" and "random" sequences. Correlated: a coin that Random: independent
Even if you do the right thing,
Evolution as tinkerer?