Aerospace Colloquium

Time and again since the era of Newton, physics has come forth

with new classes of dynamical laws ranging from Fourier's mastery of

the heat equation to Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field to Turing's ideas

on pattern formation and many others.  However, there are a large class of

dynamical processes in living organisms where the mechanical

description is of a completely different kind.

In particular, many biological processes are exploratory in nature, often largely independent of

initial conditions, and driven by a functional purpose.  For example, before our

cells divide, precisely 46 connections have to be made between the machinery

that separates chromosomes and the chromosomes themselves.  Not 45, not 47.

One connection for every one of our 23 pairs of chromosomes.   In this talk, I will describe

the hypothesis of exploratory dynamics as biology's unique and necessary solution

to problems in purposeful dynamics.  After introducing the conceptual questions and 

corresponding phenomenological observations, I will describe both theoretical

approaches to thinking about exploratory dynamics and experiments designed to 

reveal its many quantitative mysteries.