Department of Physics invites you to a colloquium on Stochastic Thermodynamics and its Application to Biology



At the time of Gibbs and Boltzmann it was already clear that thermodynamics cannot be applied to small systems. How to generalize the Thermodynamics we learn in our undergraduate studies, to small systems remains a deep problem, but with very little practical applications. The situation changed over the last three decades when it became necessary to understand the molecular machines that play a crucial role in Biology. This gave rise to the field of "Stochastic Thermodynamics". After giving a broad but brief introduction to this topic, I will describe how we use ideas borrowed from Stochastic Thermodynamics to calculate the fundamental non-equilibrium nature of the fluctuations of cell membranes.

About the Speaker:
Dhrubaditya Mitra obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore working on Spatiotemporal Multiscaling in Turbulence. He held Postdoctoral positions at the Nice Observatory in France and the Queen Mary University of London. He has been at NORDITA, Stockholm, since 2010. He has worked on a wide variety of problems from length scales of micrometer (Cells) to mega meters (the Sun). At present, he is mostly working on problems in soft matter and statistical physics with minor involvements in  Astrophysical and Geophysical problems.
Previous Article
Next Article