Matteo Smerlak

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I'm a theoretical physicist, with interests ranging from general relativity to quantum mechanics and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. I'd say the common theme in my research projects is "relativity"—the realization that something is actually much more observer-dependent that I had imagined. I find this idea enormously beautiful, and tend to look for it everywhere. Did you know that your red T-shirt will be blue to me if I run into your arms?

One interesting connection between physics and evolution I've come across is the "fluctuation theorem". This mathematical property of stochastic processes turns out to provide a common explanation to the second law of thermodynamics (increase of entropy) and Darwinian evolution (increase of fitness). I've blogged about this on John Baez's "Azimuth" [1]. I'd love to know how you react to this surprising connection, and what outlook you see.

The result which really got me excited about complex systems is West's and Bettencourt's "scaling law of cities". As far as I can tell, it's really the first "law of cities". Does it tell us whether cities—like animals—have a maximal size?