This week's talk:

In reality, high-level academia isn't as split up as the departments in schools. In this week's PhilSoc, Dr Tobias Galla will demonstrate the collaboration that occurs. The talk is entitled, “Economics, Evolution, Epidemics — The science of agent-based models” and will take place at MGS from 4:15-5:15. We hope to see as many Year 11-13s there as possible, especially those interested in medicine/biology, physics and the social sciences.

Dr Galla will outline how ideas from physics and the science of complex systems can be applied to interdisciplinary questions, in particular in biology, economics and the social sciences. This includes examples about game theory, antibiotic resistance, how one might model evolution, and the spread of diseases. He will also outline how physicists can contribute to these pressing problems, and why doing a degree in physics is not necessarily just about physics. Physicists have a unique way of seeing the world, and of approaching real-life problems. This is why there is a physics of games, a physics of epidemics and a physics of economics. In this talk Dr Galla will give a flavour of this, and hopefully convince you that physics is very special, and very different from the other sciences.

Tobias Galla is a Reader (Associate Professor) at the University of Manchester in the School of Physics and Astronomy. His career has been specialised in the area of Theoretical Physics in topics such as the statistical mechanics of complex systems and also areas such as mathematical modelling in health care.