"Prediction of Extreme Events From Rogue Waves to Protein Folding," Eric Vanden-Eijnden, NYU

Seemingly random events are ubiquitous in our daily lives. How unpredictable the weather can be is just one example, with consequences that can go from mere annoyance, in the case of unexpected rain, to catastrophic in the case of giant hurricanes. Other examples include massive earthquakes, crashes of the financial markets, or pandemics. These events are rare but they always happen eventually and their aftermath is so dire that it is desirable to accurately estimate the (small) probability of their occurrence. In this talk, Professor Vanden-Eijnden will discuss how mathematical tools from probability theory can be used to describe systems subject to random fluctuations and explain how their behavior can become predictable in certain conditions.