Welcome to the website for the Cavendish Graduate Student Conference (CGSC) 2025. CGSC is a student-organized scientific conference which aims to aims to boost collaboration across research groups at the Cavendish, to demonstrate the cutting-edge work done at the Cavendish to prospective physics researchers, and to consolidate research communication skills for graduate students.
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 09:30 - 10:00 | Registration |
| 10:00 - 10:05 | Opening Remarks by DoPE |
| 10:05 - 10:50 | Student Talks Session I |
| 10:50 - 11:10 | Coffee Break I |
| 11:10 - 12:00 | Student Talks Session II |
| 12:00 - 13:00 |
Lunch |
| 13:00 - 13:30 | Poster session A |
| 13:30 - 14:00 | Poster session B |
| 14:00 - 15:00 | Keynote speaker |
| 15:00 - 16:00 | Panel Discussion |
| 16:00 - 16:20 | Coffee break II |
| 16:20 - 17:30 | Official Cavendish Prize Ceremony |
| 17:30 onwards | Happy Hours |
How simplicity emerges from the algorithms describing our world
The coding theorem from algorithmic information theory (AIT) , which should be much more widely taught in physics, reframes the infinite monkey theorem in computational terms: not monkeys on typewriters, but on universal computers. It predicts that many natural processes are exponentially biased toward highly compressible outputs, i.e., those with low Kolmogorov complexity. I will discuss applications of this principle to biological evolution, where it implies a strong preference for symmetry [1], and to machine learning, where it predicts an Occam’s razor–like bias that helps explain why deep neural networks generalize effectively despite being heavily overparameterized [2].
[1] Symmetry and simplicity spontaneously emerge from the algorithmic nature of evolution. Iain G Johnston et al, PNAS 119, e2113883119 (2022). [2] Deep neural networks have an inbuilt Occam’s Razor, C. Mingard et al, Nat Comm.16, 220 (2025).
Ard Louis is a theoretical physicist with a broad interdisciplinary set of interests, including self-assembling DNA, theories of evolution, the dynamics of soft matter, machine learning and applications of algorithmic information theory. He happily collaborates with biologists, chemists, computer scientists, mathematicians, philosophers and theologians. After his first degree in physics from the University of Utrecht, he completed a PhD with Neil Ashcroft at Cornell. He was a Royal Society Research Fellow in Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, before moving to the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford. His Erdős–Bacon number is 6 through Jonathan Doye and Morgan Freeman. He was awarded the 2025 Institute of Physics Sam Edwards Medal and Prize, named after one of the greatest Cavendish Professors of Physics.
From Lab to Public: Strategies for Effective Science Communication
Anjana Ahuja is a freelance writer best known for her weekly science column in the Financial Times and previously wrote features and columns for The Times. She has received awards from the Association of British Science Writers and the Medical Journalists’ Association, and in 2025 was recognised by the Worshipful Company of Educators for her outreach work through Speakers for Schools. She is the co-author of Selected (2010), on the evolution of leadership, and Spike, a bestselling account of the Covid-19 pandemic shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Royal Society Science Book Prize. She holds a PhD in space physics from Imperial College London and studied journalism at City University London.
Mićo Tatalović is a science journalist and academic from Rijeka, Croatia, who lives and works in London, UK. He studied biological sciences at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, and then science communication at Imperial College London, where he researched the role of comic books in communicating science. He has also completed the Knight Science Journalism fellowship at MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, researching the use of artificial intelligence in science writing. His work experience includes news reporting and editing for SciDev.Net, New Scientist, Nature and Research Professional News.
Tbc
