You are cordially invited to the 32nd annual
Dr. Shih-I Pai Lecture
with
William Bialek
Princeton University
on
"Optimization principles in the physics of life"
Tuesday, November 17, 2026
3:30 p.m.
John S. Toll Physics Building, Room 1410
Refreshments will be served at 2:30 p.m. in the James A. Yorke Rotunda of William E. Kirwan Hall (Mathematics Building).
If you have a question about this event, including disability accommodations, please contact Anil Zenginoğlu anil@umd.edu.
About the Talk
On a dark night our visual system can count single photons. This is one of many examples in which living systems approach the limits set by the laws of physics. Many people have explored the idea that this may be more general, so that important features of biological function and mechanism could be derived from optimization principles. But optimization seems to require fine tuning, and it is hard to see how evolution could find its way to optimal parameters. I will review some recent additions to the evidence for optimality, and explore the problem of fine tuning. We have found that in many problems there are soft modes in parameter space, so that optimality can coexist with parameter variability. For an ensemble of organisms the entropy in a high dimensional parameter space can be extensive while the deviation from optimality is negligible. This removes a major obstacle to the application of optimization principles in the physics of life.
About the Speaker
William Bialek is the John Archibald Wheeler/Battelle Professor in Physics, and a member of the multidisciplinary Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. His research has addressed a wide range of theoretical physics problems motivated by the phenomena of life, across scales ranging from single molecules to flocks of birds. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Max Delbruck Prize in Biological Physics from the American Physical Society and the Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience from the Society for Neuroscience. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. (Credit: Princeton University)
About the Lecture
Dr. Shih-I Pai (1913-1996) served on the faculty of the University of Maryland at College Park beginning in 1949 and retired with Emeritus status in 1983. He was the recipient of a Centennial Medal from the A. James Clark School of Engineering and was a founding member of the Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics (now the Institute for Physical Science and Technology). Dr. Pai authored 14 books and 130 articles in the field of aerodynamics, fluid dynamics and viscous flow, for which he received international recognition. The lecture series honors Dr. Pai's many accomplishments and contributions to UMCP and is supported by donations to the University of Maryland Foundation.