Matteo Smerlak

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After graduating from Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon (France), I did my PhD in Centre de Physique Théorique de Luminy (France) under the supervision of Carlo Rovelli and Vincent Rivasseau. I am interested in theoretical physics in general (including quantum field theory and general relativity) and its applications to complex systems in particular.

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], and would love to know how you react to this surprising connection, and what outlook you see.