Non-ergodicity impacts statistical inference across a diverse range of disciplines, both within and beyond physics. However, the concept of ergodicity is used inconsistently and may refer to several non-equivalent notions.

In this talk, Fabien Paillusson (University of Lincoln) identifies and clarifies the relationships between three major interpretations of ergodicity. Furthermore, he introduces a method based on spectral analysis that can be used to identify, quantify, and classify non-ergodic populations within an ergodic decomposition. The method is demonstrated through an application to the Kob–Andersen kinetically constrained lattice glass model.

The talk is based on joint work with Nicolas Underwood, published in a working paper available here.

The seminar was hosted by Emilie Rosenlund Soysal (London Mathematical Laboratory) and James King (Science Practise).

Maximising expected outcomes – framed as expected utility in behavioural science and expected reward in reinforcement learning – has long dominated models of decision-making. In this seminar, Ollie Hulme (DRCMR) asks if people maximise time averages instead. He will present data showing that time average models better account for both neural and behavioural data in risky choice experiments, with participants operating surprisingly close to the theoretical optimum. Ollie will also discuss arguments for the biological and cognitive plausibility of time averaging as well as its consilience with a diversity of theories in psychology and neuroscience.

The seminar was hosted by Emilie Rosenlund Soysal (London Mathematical Laboratory).

In this talk, Colm Connaughton (London Mathematical Laboratory) will present Lay Len Ching’s recent work exploring the extent to which a class of heuristic decision models known as fast-and-frugal trees can be trained to play the Copenhagen experiment. The findings suggest that simple heuristics may provide a cognitively plausible model for how people adapt to the changing risk dynamics in the experiment.

This talk can be thought of as a follow-on from Özgür Şimşek’s seminar on the design of fast-and-frugal trees.

The seminar was hosted by James King (Science Practice) and Emilie Rosenlund Soysal (London Mathematical Laboratory).

In this talk, Aubrey Clayton (author of Bernoulli’s Fallacy) will survey the acrimonious history of these foundational questions and propose a new approach to teaching probability-as-logic based on E.T. Jaynes’s principle of transformation groups.

The seminar was hosted by James King (Science Practice) and Emilie Rosenlund Soysal (London Mathematical Laboratory).

The seminar was hosted by James King (Science Practice) and Emilie Rosenlund Soysal (London Mathematical Laboratory).

Özgür’s slides are available here.

The seminar was hosted by Ole Peters (London Mathematical Laboratory), James King (Science Practice), and Emilie Rosenlund Soysal (London Mathematical Laboratory).

The seminar was hosted by James King (Science Practice) and Emilie Rosenlund Soysal (London Mathematical Laboratory).