agency

How do green algae manage a perfect breaststroke even though they haven't got a brain? Enter the maths of synchronisation.

Untangling how the human perception of cause-and-effect might arise from quantum physics may help us understand the limits and potential of AI.

Researchers are exploring if quantum mechanics could make machine learning more powerful and shed light on evolution.

An all-encompassing framework of physics could help to explain the evolution of consciousness, intelligence, and free will.

In pursuit of the mystery of life, physicists are combining cells to form compounds that can read signals and respond to them, just as living things do.

In these articles and podcast we explore how agency is what distinguishes us humans from intelligent machines, and how machines might be taught to behave more like we do.

In this podcast we find out why true artificial intelligence will only become possible once machines have something that babies are born with: agency.

In this podcast we talk about magical concept of emergence and how we can model the behaviour of crowds of people.

In this podcast find out the basics of machine learning, and why time travel and immortality might be easier to achieve than human level artificial intelligence.

We talk to Chiara Marletto about a new way of looking at the physical world that may solve some of the problems physicists are currently struggling with.

How do we learn and understand the world? What separates us from machines? Yoshua Bengio believes it all comes down to our agency.

How do we build our models of the world? Yoshua Bengio explains how deep learning will help machines act to understand the world in a similar way.

  • Want facts and want them fast? Our Maths in a minute series explores key mathematical concepts in just a few words.

  • What do chocolate and mayonnaise have in common? It's maths! Find out how in this podcast featuring engineer Valerie Pinfield.

  • Is it possible to write unique music with the limited quantity of notes and chords available? We ask musician Oli Freke!

  • How can maths help to understand the Southern Ocean, a vital component of the Earth's climate system?

  • Was the mathematical modelling projecting the course of the pandemic too pessimistic, or were the projections justified? Matt Keeling tells our colleagues from SBIDER about the COVID models that fed into public policy.

  • PhD student Daniel Kreuter tells us about his work on the BloodCounts! project, which uses maths to make optimal use of the billions of blood tests performed every year around the globe.