Professor Rob Phillips, California Institute of Technology
S.G. Mudd Building
Stanford University
“How Schrodinger's Cat Became a Cat”
About the Seminar:
The early days of quantum mechanics culminated in great debates about the nature of physical reality leading to ideas such as Schrodinger’s famed cat and the possible existence of “hidden variables” that were missing from the quantum description of nature. Though the idea of hidden variables may not have panned out in physics, here I will argue that Schrodinger’s cat may also have something to teach us about biology. In particular, I will describe recent measurements on noise in gene expression and argue that in some cases this noisy expression is only apparent noise that disappears once some underlying hidden variables are discovered. This general idea will be illustrated through several specific case studies involving bacterial regulation and the induction of transcription factors.
About the Speaker:
Rob Phillips grew up in San Diego, California in a home filled with books, leading to a love affair with books and reading that has continued to this day. He is currently a professor of Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Phillips received his PhD in condensed matter physics at Washington University in 1989 studying with Anders Carlsson from whom he learned an enormous amount about the conduct of science and about science itself. Prior to the privilege of a life in science, he spent seven years of travel, self-study and work as an electrician.
This Student Hosted Colloquium is sponsored by Merck:
