Oxford Lectures 2025
From Werner KRAUTH
My 2025 Public Lectures at the University of Oxford (UK), entitled Algorithms and computations in theoretical physics, run from 21 January 2025 through 11 March 2025.
Lecture 1: 21 January 2025
We start our parallel exploration of physics and of computing with the concept of sampling, the process of producing examples (“samples”) of a probability distribution. In week 1, we consider “direct” sampling (the examples are obtained directly) and, among the many connections to physics, will come across the Maxwell distribution. In 1859, it marked the beginning of the field of statistical physics.
