Bio

Pavel is currently a second-year graduate student in physics at MIT. He finished his bachelor’s doing experimental physics at the University of Michigan, which was followed by a master’s degree in theoretical physics at Perimeter Institute in Canada. Having tried research in condensed matter experiments, quantum gravity, and cognitive science, he has now settled on a project in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics with biophysical inspiration—though he maintains a keen interest in the other fields, and hopes to make connections in the future.

Project: Toy Physics with Cellular Automata

While CA can be specified with arbitrary rules, physical systems are constrained by certain symmetries and the corresponding conservation laws. Here we focused on finding and understanding the behavior of the classes of CA that also exhibit similar symmetries, and thus can be used as toy models for physical systems.