A team led by Professor Ard Louis from Oxford’s Department of Physics has shown how to make the coding theorem from algorithmic information theory practically applicable, and use it to show that many phenomena -- ranging from biological RNA structures to financial models to deep learning with neural networks -- exhibit ‘simplicity bias’, which makes simple outputs far more likely than complex outputs.

It is with sadness that we announce that Professor Sir Roger Elliott FRS, died on 16 April 2018 aged 89.

Roger was appointed to a University Lectureship in Theoretical Physics and a Tutorial Fellowship at St John’s College in 1957, was promoted to Reader in 1964, and held the Wykeham Professorship of Theoretical Physics 1974-88. He was elected FRS in 1976 and knighted in 1987. He was Physical Secretary and Vice-President of the Royal Society from 1984–1988, and served as chief executive of Oxford University Press from 1988 until 1993.

Professor Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018

On 13 March 2018, physicists awoke to news that Prof Stephen Hawking, surely Oxford’s best known physics undergraduate (Univ. 1959), had died peacefully in his sleep. He leaves behind a monumental legacy.

Researchers have discovered that input-output maps, which are widely used throughout science and engineering to model systems ranging from physics to finance, are strongly biased toward producing simple outputs. The results are surprising, as naïvely there is no reason to suspect that one output should be more likely than any other.

A group of scientists which includes Prof Subir Sarkar Head of Particle Theory Group, Theoretical Physics, working with the world’s largest particle detector, have for the first time demonstrated the Earth’s ability to stop highly energetic neutrino particles.

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Professor Frederick K. Lamb
University of Illinois
Friday 1 December 2017 at 3.30pm
Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, followed by reception

Title: Scientific and Policy Aspects of the Iran Nuclear Deal