ICTP Colloquium Tomorrow, 13 September 2012 at 16:30

[Infopoint]

*ICTP COLLOQUIUM*

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*16:30, Thursday, 13 September 2012*

*Main Lecture Hall, Leonardo Building, ICTP*

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*Randomness and Pseudorandomness*

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**Avi Wigderson***

*Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

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*Abstract

Is the universe inherently deterministic or probabilistic? Perhaps more
importantly - can we tell the difference between the two?

Humanity has pondered the meaning and utility of randomness for 
millennia. There is a remarkable variety of ways in which we utilize 
perfect coin tosses to our advantage: in statistics, cryptography, game 
theory, algorithms, gambling... Indeed, randomness seems indispensable! 
Which of these applications survive if the universe had no randomness in 
it at all? Which of them survive if only poor quality randomness is 
available, e.g. that arises from "unpredictable" phenomena like the 
weather or the stock market?

A computational theory of randomness, developed in the past three 
decades, reveals (perhaps counter-intuitively) that very little is lost 
in such deterministic or weakly random worlds. In the talk I'll explain 
the main ideas and results of this theory.

No particular technical background will be assumed.*

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