Science & Cocktails #49 | Letting Nature Do the Computing: Solving and Learning, the Physical Way by Guy Van Der Sande + I Don't Clean The House (BE)

Doors: 19:30 · Show: 20:30 · Price: 12€ (including 1 cocktail) Les tickets ne sont pas remboursables sauf en cas d'annulation ou de report de notre part.

Tickets are non-refundable unless cancelled or postponed by us.

Letting Nature Do the Computing: Solving and Learning, the PhysicalWay

Abstract:

Your laptop solves problems the hard way: onetiny switch at a time, billions of times a second. But some problems just don'twant to be solved that way, from untangling complex networks to recognizingpatterns the way a brain does. So what if, instead of forcing physics to imitatea calculator, we let physics do the work on its own terms? Guy Van der Sandeexplores two ways this is already happening: physical systems that solve toughoptimization problems simply by settling into their most comfortable state, theway a soap film snaps into the shape that costs it the least effort to hold,and physical systems that mimic the brain itself, using their natural, messybehavior to learn and recognize patterns without being explicitly programmedstep by step. Built from light, electronics, or other physical media, thesemachines don't compute like a normal computer at all, and that might be exactlythe point.

Questions:

1. Why aretoday's computers, for all their speed, actually bad at solving certain kindsof problems?

2. What doesit mean to let physics "solve" a problem instead of programming asolution?

3. How can aphysical system act a bit like a brain, learning without being explicitlytaught?

4. What kindsof real-world problems could this approach help tackle?

5. Is thisthe same idea as quantum computing, or something else entirely?

Guy Van der Sande (Speaker)

Guy Van der Sande is a professor in the Applied Physics research group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), where he also earned his PhD in 2005. His work sits at the crossroads of photonics, nonlinear dynamics, and brain-inspired computing, exploring how light and physical systems can process information in ways that go beyond how conventional computers work. Over the course of his career, he has worked with research groups in Brussels and Mallorca on the dynamics of lasers, networks of coupled oscillators, and bio-inspired information processing. Alongside his research, he has taught physics and photonics to bachelor's and master's students since 2012, and has authored well over a hundred scientific publications.

Conference will be followed by a concert.

I Don't Clean The House (BE)